December 10, 2018
Poetry for People Who Hate Poetry – December
What makes poetry poetry? Ask that question of a dozen poets, scholars, or readers and you’ll get as many different answers, maybe more. Some won’t be much help: “Poetry is […]
May 23, 2018
Your Online Dating Profile Written by Famous Writers
The Misunderstood Detective With a Poet’s Soul: About You: You love to dwell in uncertainties. You relish the chance to analyze anything, whether it be a text, film, or person. […]
January 20, 2018
Interview with Andrew Seguin
Combining the poetic, photographic and historic, Andrew Seguin’s collection The Room In Which I Work (winner of the 2015 Omnidawn Open Book Contest) is immersive on a variety of different […]
September 2, 2017
A Poised Education: Robert Frost’s “Birches”
Perhaps, by the time you read these words, my thinking will have changed—it’s an odd way of speaking, the future perfect tense, an anticipation of something that, in the future, […]
January 14, 2017
Innovation in Conversation: Part II
In my last post, I segued from thinking about Terrance Hayes’s formal innovation to thinking about other poets’ formal innovations (and the possible conversations or influences therein), spending time with Randall Mann’s “Straight […]
September 9, 2016
How To
Who said—and I’m woefully paraphrasing—that each poem teaches you to read it in the reading of it? Or each poet teaches you to understand their personal language within the poems themselves? I […]
September 1, 2016
Placement Test
A few days ago, at breakfast with friends, someone brought up the name of an Ypsilanti coffee shop I hadn’t thought about in a while. Oh, I thought, I wrote […]
May 5, 2016
Why I’m Still Not Convinced that Meter is Physiological
I sparked a small feud last month when I wrote in this blog that “Iambic Pentameter Has Nothing to Do with Your Heart.” My essay took issue with a “pulse […]
January 22, 2016
Of Late: Procrastination and Poetry
There has to be a word for the very special kind of procrastination that goes into planning a poetry course. I certainly engage in the regular kind of procrastination with […]
December 17, 2015
A Last-Minute Shopper’s Guide to Children’s Poetry
Before my son was born, I memorized a poem. I know how this must sound to parents and non-parents: another hopelessly sentimental exercise that’s more about the papa than the […]
November 20, 2015
Who Only Has at Heart Your Getting Lost: Wandering Into Poetry
Even for those of us who don’t have to be convinced to read poetry in the first place, it can be a challenge to “keep up” with poetry. If you’re reading […]
March 20, 2015
Speaking with Objects in Robert Frost, Richard Pryor, and Charles Baxter
In his fantastic book on the craft of fiction, Burning Down the House, Charles Baxter examines how some authors make animate and inanimate objects (like clouds and houses) come to life, gaze […]