February 23, 2012
Matchup #1: O Rare Ben Jonson vs. A Little-Known 15th Century Welsh Poet
In any discussion of elegies for a lost child, Ben Jonson’s frequently comes up. You may know the one I’m talking about: Farewell, thou child of my right hand, […]
February 22, 2012
Someone Wrote You a Letter
You know you should write but you don’t. I don’t. Let’s be clear: I’ve neglected my blog for weeks now, though I love it. And it took three weeks to […]
February 12, 2012
Short Takes: Toward a New Past
A defense of the virtues of an art that’s seemingly more and more lost each year: memorization and declamation. William Gibson, on science fiction authors’ hankering for the way things […]
February 11, 2012
Reading List: Old-School Narrative Poems
We prefer our extended stories in prose now. That’s just the way it is. It’s not just American poetic culture that’s made this decision. It seems to be a common […]
February 4, 2012
On Ruinability: “Momentary” by A. E. Stallings
How small an alteration do I have to make to destroy the effect of your poem? Naturally, the test alteration has to be something a lesser, or less judicious, poet […]
January 26, 2012
Mix Tape: Cursed Poets
What does it mean to “be a poet”? Philip Larkin “didn’t give readings or lectures, was never a poet-in-residence at a university, never taught, rarely gave interviews, generally stayed away […]
January 19, 2012
A thousand words, a single elegy
I expected only dust when I opened the old photo album, but inside its plastic sleeves were the faces of a family. I flipped through the pages; they depicted a […]
January 18, 2012
Mind of Winter
If anyone has one, a mind of winter, it’s Tomas Tranströmer. I’ve been thinking about his poems lately, how each seems to place the reader in a crystalline picture frame […]
January 17, 2012
Short Takes: Poetic Violence
Why is it that, 600 years later, Joan of Arc still fascinates us? And by “us” I mean, of course, not just you and me, reader, but “Shakespeare, Voltaire, Twain, […]
January 3, 2012
All I Ever Wanted To Be Was Frank O’Hara
I didn’t know enough, as a child, to want to be Frank O’Hara. Had I read those poems in my sleepy upstate New York hometown, I would have understood their […]
December 22, 2011
Mix Tape: The Holidays Wouldn’t Be the Same Without…
Laughing until your belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly. Check out this video of The Elements of Style rap. Suffering through all the merry and bright after a bad […]
November 18, 2011
Mix Tape: Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner…
…and nobody shoves Bob Hass around. Have books, will travel! Occupy Wall Street and the need for mobile libraries. Books can go anywhere, and so can poems…so why are so […]