November 30, 2017
A Letter to My Women’s Studies Students
I probably won’t tell you this is up until after I turn in grades. I probably shouldn’t tell you that the grading system itself is archaic and not a measure […]
November 27, 2017
American Sonnets (Part IV: As American As…)
[Continued from “Hayes’s American Sonnets (Part III: Hayes and The Confidence of Influence”] When I first decided to write about Terrance Hayes’s new “American Sonnet for My Past and Future […]
November 25, 2017
Mix-Tape III: Thankfulness as Wakefulness
Over the autumn break this week, my husband and I flew to South Texas to spend time with my family. Less than a week ago, my Aunt Olivia had been […]
November 21, 2017
That Time I Fell in Love with Gargantua (Is Always Now)
In a way, I learned to love my home better by saying goodbye to it… For so long I had alternated between hating and cherishing it; now, finally, I […]
November 16, 2017
A Brief Measure of Richard Wilbur
I noticed that several poets the other day, responding to the latest National Book Award longlist, declared our era a “golden age” of poetry. With the death of Richard Wilbur […]
November 15, 2017
Christopher Soto on the June Jordan Teaching Corp
DM: Dr. Joshua Bennett and The Center for Justice at Columbia University have invited you to teach a community-based writing workshop that serves both the Columbia University student body and also members […]
November 8, 2017
Layli Long Soldier and Identity
Having spent a good part of the last week discussing Layli Long Soldier’s remarkable Whereas (2017) with my poetry classes, her complex questions of identity and being in the world […]
November 2, 2017
“Finally all indications of a subject / Began to fade”
The poet John Ashbery died on September 3, 2017, and I spent September and October reading the flood of reminiscences. It interests me that Ashbery—he of the slippery speaker(s) and […]
October 30, 2017
Hayes’s American Sonnets (Part III: Hayes and The Confidence of Influence)
[Continued from “Hayes’s American Sonnets (Part II)”] While my intention in my last post was simply to begin to connect Wanda Coleman’s “American Sonnets” with Terrance Hayes’s “American Sonnets for […]
October 30, 2017
If Zero-Point Energy + Infinite Timelines Then
All your timelines lead to more timelines, and none of them have an inch of empty space. And so do his, my sweetest friend. Even if he denies this. He who […]
October 25, 2017
Hayes’s American Sonnets (Part II)
[Continued from “Hayes’s American Sonnets (Part I)”] I trace Hayes’s “American Sonnet” impulse and form to Wanda Coleman, but Coleman and Hayes are certainly not alone in making the sonnet […]
October 24, 2017
Hayes’s American Sonnets (Part I)
There is a particular excitement in experiencing a favorite poet’s new project unfurl, if not in real time as its poems are written, then soon after, before a collection binds […]