February 1, 2017
Echoes and Mirrors (Innovation in Conversation: Part III)
One of the joys of teaching, and of writing for the Kenyon Review blog, is the two-way street of ideas and information these forums afford. While I hope I’m educating in […]
January 26, 2017
Derechim: Writing as traveler’s prayer
Years ago, one of my first would-be mentors told me that he was never writing again. That the sum total of rejection, the pressure to keep sending work out […]
January 6, 2017
Innovation in Conversation: Part I
In thinking about formal innovation in the poetry of Terrance Hayes in my last post, it struck me that, paradoxically, innovation loves company. As a reader, when I encounter formal “newness,” […]
December 21, 2016
Oulipo-Adjacent: Harryette Mullen
In my last post on Unica Zürn and the poetics of the anagram, I briefly mentioned the Oulipo writers, often the first group to come to mind when one thinks of constraint-based writing […]
December 21, 2016
Dictating Notes, Instead of Writing Them
During the ancient time historians call Before Smart Phones, or BSP, I used to write all my observations and ideas in a notebook. I’d take trips, walk to work and […]
December 19, 2016
Unica Zürn: It lies in your hand
Enge, hier ist dein Land . . . es liegt in deiner Hand. (Narrow, here is your country . . . It lies in your hand.) –Unica Zürn (Berlin, 1954) […]
November 17, 2016
Introductory Paragraphs
While working at Powell’s Books, I had a routine. I would pull a story or essay collection from the literature shelves, read the first few paragraphs of every piece in […]
October 26, 2016
Poetry and Leadership: Part II
Continued from “Poetry and Leadership: Part I.” In thinking about reading and writing poetry as part of a practice of engagement, there are a few poems that have become touchstone […]
September 14, 2016
The Victor Dog
My husband recently inherited an old Victrola from his maternal grandparents. It’s perfectly maintained; lift the lid and wind the crank and drop the needle on one of the thick records […]
July 27, 2016
It’s All about the Music: A Tribute to Tim Duncan
A few years ago, I scrambled my first boulders at Old Rag Mountain, reportedly one of the most challenging and dangerous hikes. Coming and going, the nearly nine-mile hike itself […]
July 1, 2016
First Person Plural: Part V (Genealogy)
Over the course of multiple posts, I’ve focused on poems that explore the first person plural – “we.” Most recently, I looked at Camille Rankine’s poem “Genealogy,” a poem that, though […]
June 29, 2016
First Person Plural: Part IV
I’m thinking again about Camille Rankine’s poetry and the first person plural—the more-than-singular self. In an earlier post, I spent time with Rankine’s poem “We,”a poem that invokes a collective […]