James Longenbach’s fourth collection of poems, The Iron Key, was published by Norton in the fall of 2010. He is the Joseph Gilmore Professor of English at the University of Rochester and the author, most recently, of The Art of the Poetic Line (Graywolf, 2008).
Nonfiction
Fall 2012
Feeling Tense
What happens when a poem changes tense? Poetic language may change egregiously—diction, figure, syntax—but shifts in tense are so familiar, so endemic to ordinary speech, that they’re almost inaudible. All […]
Poetry
Fall 2010
Ficus Carica
At first we built canopies out of foliage. We imitated swallows’ nests, using wattles and clay. When we gathered together in one place We called ourselves citizens. Diospolis, city of […]
Poetry
Spring 2009
The Island
For three days every couple of weeks I lived In a small apartment, the kind built after the war. Nothing fancy: parquet floor, a fireplace, a bedroom, a bath. Woodwork […]