June 10, 2019
Poetry for People Who Hate Poetry – June
But does poetry actually change anything? Does it need to? Maybe poets are, as Percy Bysshe Shelley writes, “the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Or maybe W.H. Auden is right that […]
May 15, 2018
Finding the Magic Writing Ritual
Writers’ rituals are central to the way they work and are often treated as acts of spirituality or even seance. Haruki Murakami refers to his routine as “a form of […]
April 10, 2018
American Sonnets (Part XIX: The Pure Products of America)
[Continued from: “American Sonnets (Part XVIII: From the French for…)”] Rimbaud’s addition to the lineage of both disguised form a la Auden and the “American” sonnet is more than speculative; […]
November 16, 2017
A Brief Measure of Richard Wilbur
I noticed that several poets the other day, responding to the latest National Book Award longlist, declared our era a “golden age” of poetry. With the death of Richard Wilbur […]
April 24, 2017
Positive Negation: Saying No in Poetry
The old creative writing class imperative to “write what you know” may have its place, but lately I’ve been thinking of the power of poetry not to “know,” but to […]
September 28, 2016
Donald the Ogre
W. H. Auden’s “August 1968” has been on my mind recently. The idea that a poet might compose an immediate response to a catastrophe (in this case, the Soviet invasion […]
May 17, 2016
The Power of Ritual and Routine?
What power does ritual and routine hold in a writer’s life? It obviously depends on the writer. “Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition,” wrote W.H. Auden […]
November 23, 2014
Pitching and Defense
In today’s New York Times Book Review, Adam Kirsch and Leslie Jamison address a familiar question: “How has the social role of poetry changed since Shelley?” (This question is usually […]
November 30, 2013
The Twain (and Wilde) Shall Meet
Did Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde ever share a bottle or a joke? That’s a question I’ve been trying to answer for the last hour. Wilde’s literary ascent in the […]
October 31, 2013
The Stars Did What They Do: “Heaven and Earth,” Considered
“Heaven and Earth,” the penultimate poem in Carl Phillips’ Double Shadow, offers up vertigo, suffering, and fear—and all in the first four lines. The poem’s title, perhaps, alludes to the […]
September 2, 2013
How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear!
The magnificent Edward Lear, who described himself as “3 parts crazy—and wholly affectionate,” found his way into the Times’ Arts Beat this past week. The piece begins: “Ever wonder what […]
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. […]