April 20, 2016
Writing to Write, to Write, to Write?
Just out from Sidebrow Books, every single poem in Mathias Svalina’s new collection, The Wine-Dark Sea, is entitled “The Wine-Dark Sea.” And every single one is great. But “The Wine-Dark Sea” […]
April 16, 2016
Iambic Pentameter Has Nothing to Do with Your Heart
It is time that all poets, critics, and readers dispense with the following metaphor: the iamb is a heartbeat. Let us refrain from settling arguments (or starting them) by asking […]
April 7, 2016
AWP: When Writers Attack
Last week, on a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles, I read Chuck Sambuchino’s When Clowns Attack: A Survival Guide. I was preparing for the AWP Conference—an annual 12,000-person pileup […]
April 5, 2016
The Classic Crates Time Capsule: A Proposal
I play it cool I dig all jive That’s the reason I stay alive My motto as I live and learn Is dig and be dug in return —Langston Hughes, […]
April 1, 2016
The Year I Forgot Passover: On Love, Memory, and Honor
I’ll eat with money and I’ll eat with my teeth until the rocks and the mountains curl and my blood sings — I’m such a good girl to eat the world. […]
March 30, 2016
Phife’s Islands
The third death of A Tribe Called Quest occurred last week with the passing of Phife Dawg. The first death came after The Love Movement, when the group broke up; […]
March 25, 2016
Birds Eat Birds: On Congee and Conscience
As far as I can tell, congee neither lengthens nor curtails your life. And it’s just right there between comforting and bland: eating it makes you feel like you’re on […]
March 24, 2016
Any Last Words
Over at Edutopia, ninth grade English teacher Brett Vogelsinger recently made the case for beginning each class with a poem, citing and expanding upon brevity, intensity, connection, and inspiration as […]
March 22, 2016
“Clown” as Epithet
In the 1924 film He Who Gets Slapped, the scholar Paul Beaumont (played by Lon Chaney) is betrayed by his patron, the Baron, in front of an academy of scientists. […]
March 18, 2016
CantoMundo: Graduation Day
Carmen, Deborah, Celeste, it’s too early. I’m still dripping wet, a towel around my head. This is not my writing hour. Seven in the morning is the middle of the night, […]
March 14, 2016
The Eros of Bees
To the bee, a flower is the fountain of life, and to the flower, the bee is a messenger of love. —Khalil Gibran On the 7 Train, a friend tells […]
March 9, 2016
Poetry and Community: Events and Evidence
When we consider what enables a poem to endure, it’s easy to side with immediate fatalism and shoulder-shrugging, or opt for broad-brushed faith in long-term aesthetic exceptionalism and artistic meritocracy, without really considering the everyday […]