If I can wake up every morning and face the fallen world with an open heart, even if I know that it will hurt, If I can bring an open heart to a world in which educated people would rather…
Tag: poetics
(Im)personal Odes “to the Coming Extinctions”: A Review of Controlled Hallucinations by John Sibley Williams
Debates about the value of confessional and personal poetry are often discussions about how much intimacy a poet should allow, and how close to one’s personal experiences and perceptions poems can hew before they lose their broader significance. Few things…
10 Ways of Looking at the Reaction to Mark Edmundson’s “Poetry Slam” in Harper’s Magazine
and other poetsphere kerfuffles Denunciations elicit more responses than nuanced criticism. While at first this seems unfortunate, it reflects a very good thing: that poets are emotionally invested in poetry. When such denunciations repeat familiar complaints, rebuttals are easier (and…
Why Poets Should Read Jamaica Kincaid’s See Now Then
The prose of Jamaica Kincaid’s See Now Then has a frustrated and frustrating music, the rhythm of minds trying to resolve the past and the present and memories that might be fantasies, likely are fantasies, or may be the future.…
The Heavy and the Light in Poetry
I am troubled and challenged by Hannah Gamble’s How to Write a Good Rape/ Suicide/ Break-Up/ Genocide Poem, or Lightness as the Necessary Companion to All That’s Sad and Disturbing. Troubled because if we react to unrelenting sadness and…
So What If Poetry Is Dead?
The latest round of poetry-is-dead/no-it-isn’t (are we up to one-a-month yet?) kicked off with a silly article in The Washington Post responding to Richard Blanco’s inaugural poem. As might be expected, such a brightly silly piece flying in such a…