Michael S. Harper was a poet, scholar, and teacher. His many books of poetry earned him multiple awards including the National Institute of Arts and Letters Creative Writing Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant.
Poetry
Winter 2009
Leonard Brown, Musician/Teacher
I am not used to being screamed atin the upper register ‘where Miles couldn’t live’ wordsmiths are ‘lovers of the seams’fit in (on a dime) half measures are over with […]
Poetry
Spring 2001
Tagore (Nobel, 1913)
From the sanskrit only jingles if the west would tell it straight, but this is a Bengali poet, 2000 songs to his poem, and in the west nothing sacred; […]
Cultures of Creativity: The Centennial Celebration of the Nobel Prizes
Spring 2001
On Brodsky’s Collected
“With all tenderness and affection” —from J. Brodsky to M. Harper; inscribed in Less than One: Selected Essays, October 12, 1988 Signature in a paperback arresting your copious […]
Poetry
Summer 1995
Prologue of an Arkansas Traveler
We rely on the truth for and against ourselves. —Ralph Waldo Emerson, “To the Public” Most men lied about New York City; every woman tells the truth about trains. I […]
Contemporary American Poetry
Summer 1982
Memorial Meetings
for Robert Hayden, 1913-1980 Clearing your throat at the high-falutin' antics of friends, in the first public light (hidden confrontations, admissions, confessions)—the jazz band could not play, locked out of […]
Contemporary American Poetry
Summer 1982
For My Father
I look over the old photos for the U S Hotel fire, 1900 Saratoga Springs, where your grandfather was chef on loan from Catskill where you were bon. The grapes […]
Contemporary American Poetry
Summer 1982
Horse-Trading
for Henri Coulette Either the track or the glue factory, he got both, but the image of the horsecock hanging there at eye level is all she ever got of […]
Poetry
Autumn 1980
News from Fort Ancient
platinum is the best curefor cancersince we can’t find gold— James Wright, 1927-1980 Don’t ask me, now, Jim Wright, why this place comes to mind but it is not arrowhead […]
In Memoriam
Horse-Trading; Memorial Meetings
From The Kenyon Review, New Series, Summer 1982, Vol. IV, No. 3. Horse-Trading for Henri Coulette Either the track or the glue factory, he got both, but the image of […]