November 4, 2013
Rimbaud the Prodigy
We are used to mathematical prodigies—a Ramanujan, a Pascal, an Evariste Gaulois—leaping to some early, complete insight closed off to the merely talented or well-practiced. Musical prodigies, too, are well-documented; […]
September 23, 2013
Zen and The Art of Cover Letter Writing
The best insight I received about job applications came from a mentor who had led many search committees, who had seen the best candidates “on paper” simply bomb interviews, while […]
August 22, 2013
Brief Guide to the Backs of Poetry Books
Here’s what you need to interpret the mysterious coded language on the backs of poetry books. 1. Watch out for eclecticism and egalitarianism promised through the high-culture/pop-culture mashup. In the […]
August 21, 2013
Keith Montesano: On Writing, First Poetry Books, and His Interview Blog
In 2011, having just finished my MFA, I had, more or less, completed my first poetry manuscript, and felt ready to see it become a book. But, like a lot […]
August 16, 2013
The Anthology Blues, or, A Very Modest Proposal
It’s like the long-delayed return of a plague we were sure had taken its last victims: the debate over the Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry has risen, zombie-like. Just […]
August 13, 2013
Tangent on a Line by John Burgon
Consider the one-hit-wonder nature of some lines, poems, and poets. Like the famous description of “A rose-red city half as old as time,” which comes from the now-forgotten sonnet […]
August 12, 2013
Lectures With Nothing (Or Everything) To Say: On Mary Ruefle
[This post serves as the introduction for a soon-to-be-published interview with Ruefle.] The function of the anecdote in criticism is double-edged: at once ailment and salve. But in considering Mary […]
July 18, 2013
Pottery Glut
On Potter Island, everybody without a trade was trained to be a potter. They didn’t have to show any particular skill with their hands; all they needed was the […]
July 10, 2013
Clerihew Day: The Return
I’ve been away from this blog for two and a half years, and it would be only a slight exaggeration to say I’ve spent most of that time writing clerihews. […]
June 28, 2013
What Makes Contemporary American Poetry So Good
One of the most wonderful things about being a writer in contemporary America—besides the unprecendented ease of access to books—is our multiplicity of traditions. In the past, in smaller, more homogenous […]
March 25, 2013
Why I Don’t Teach Poetry Writing
What are we teaching when we teach the writing of poetry? Much of what we call the “teaching” of poetry is actually the teaching of contemporary conventions governing poetry. […]
March 4, 2013
Knox Writers’ House: A Conversation with Emily Oliver
If you haven’t visited the Knox Writers’ House—a digital archive of poets and writers reading their poems and prose, as well as the writings of others, recording in the towns […]