March 9, 2017
Poetry in Public: Or, Why I Leave the House
I recently returned to the Amy Clampitt House, where I’m in residence through June, after a multi-leg trip to Baltimore and Louisville. In Baltimore, I was reading for the Enoch […]
March 8, 2017
Quo Vadis, White Guy?
It’s a question that keeps coming back to me: Why are white guys so angry? Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against white guys, being one myself. It’s just […]
March 6, 2017
Painting the Since [Then]
This World is not Conclusion. A Species stands beyond – Invisible, as Music – But positive, as Sound – It beckons, and it baffles – —Emily Dickinson, “This World is not […]
March 3, 2017
We Love to Hate Poetry Because We Need It
On a Sunday night, June 12, Lin Manuel Miranda, creator and star of Hamilton, stood onstage to accept the Tony Award for Best Original Score Written for Theatre. Aware that […]
March 1, 2017
“They Leave Everything”: A Meditation on Robert Lowell’s 100th Birthday
This year marks the centennial of Robert Lowell’s birth, and not for that reason alone the time seems right to look again at one of his poems. While much of […]
February 28, 2017
Citizenship (Part Two)
Earlier today I glanced at my Facebook News Feed and saw, as usual, post after post about the president. He was doing what he always does: playing footsie with the […]
February 22, 2017
Goon I Feel You
How such gentle names belie the bodies checked into boards. Like in another context you could say: Here maple leafs fall among islanders, and think I’m talking about vacationing […]
February 16, 2017
I’ll Never Forget Her Name: On Private Selves in Public Spaces
Let me begin by stating this is not a post-AWP-reflections essay. Or maybe it is exactly that. I was talking to a poet who did not think herself a poet, […]
February 8, 2017
An interview with Natalie Diaz
What seems urgent to you right now in your writing life? And as a Mojave and Pima American, how do you handle, balance, or negotiate expectations that you are always […]
February 7, 2017
Notes on BANANA PALACE or Fourteen Ways of Looking at Dana Levin
1. Toward the end of Dana Levin’s remarkable book of poems Banana Palace, a poem entitled “At the End of My Hours” closes its first section like this: . . . […]
February 6, 2017
Citizenship (Part One)
I’m writing this post on Super Bowl Sunday, a semi-holiday (or day of observance, literally) that’s wholly American. And I’m thinking about what it means to be an American in […]
February 3, 2017
The Vatican’s Jude Law
These days my Sunday ritual includes attending a small, intimate, contemplatively-inflected evening Mass and then getting home in time to watch the HBO series The Young Pope, created by […]