Poetry Should Hurt
Meaning and context take a backseat as the language police round up another suspect.
Ten Second News
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Poet Voice and Why it Grates
Picture, if you will, that you are not overly familiar with live poetry reading, and gave it a chance just to try it. But the speaker, using a monotone and slightly halting delivery, was as imposing as the meaning of the words themselves. Turns out that is common as @cjgiaimo writes in Atlas Obscura
In Defense of Poetry
Old poetry is laden with the baggage of centuries of hidden metaphor and archaic references. New poetry is prone to abstraction and whimsical laziness. But poetry deserves our consideration as an art form nonetheless. After all, all the music we love is poetry, and all the fun little things we can do with language are best done in poetic form.
Same as it Evers Was
Tinkering with some verse, leaving nothing to chance.
Sickle Moon
A poem for Paris.
Louise Glück and the Aspiration of Poetry
What do anthologies do to the experience of reading poetry? And what makes a poem a poem, anyway?
A Special Oscar Night Challenge
All comments about
The Academy Awards
Must be in haiku
i thank You God for most this amazing by e e cummings
Jaybird reads “i thank You God for most this amazing” as he tries to tackle e e cummings.
The Saddest Poem?
What’s the saddest poem ever written? With a couple candidates.
Why the Goddess Weeps
An original poem, written by a lawyer during a particularly challenging day at court.
A Gordon Setter
Original poetry by Dale Forguson.
Poem for Monday
Original poetry by Dale Forguson
Translation as Commentary (or, Commentary as Translation?)
It is September, which means—inevitably—that I find myself thinking about Paul Celan’s “Todesfugue,” this time (the first time) as a teacher. It is hardly easy, in subject matter or in style—it is credited for being the target of Adorno’s, “Poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric,” and the exception that made him back away, ever so slightly,…
Another from Edmond Rostand
Rostand’s second poem from Les Musardises, entitled “The Bedroom.” For my English translation I chose rhymed couplets, though I admit with BlaiseP that there’s a procrustean quality to some of them. Incidentally, the author dedicates a short essay to explaining the title of the book. Musardise is not a word in standard French, and figuring…
History’s Lost, Part II: Sappho
“Euripides was eaten by dogs; Aeschylus killed by a stone; Sappho leapt from a cliff. We know no more of them than that. We have their poetry, and that is all.” – Virginia Woolf, “On Not Knowing Greek” Of Sappho, the so-called Tenth Muse, we have her poetry only barely. Unlike Stesichorus’, her reputation has…
A poem for Wednesday
The Old Fools by Philip Larkin What do they think has happened, the old fools, To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose It’s more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools, And you keep on pissing yourself, and can’t remember Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose, They could…
A Golden Age of American Poetry?
From the NYRBlog: In a country in which schools seem to teach less literature every year, where fewer people read books and ignorance reigns supreme regarding most issues, poetry is read and written more than ever. Anyone who doesn’t believe me ought to take a peek at what’s available on the web . . .…
Poetic License Meets the War on Christmas
I hereby declare James Hanley this season’s poet laureate.
a poem for sunday
Japan ~by Billy Collins Today I pass the time reading a favorite haiku, saying the few words over and over. It feels like eating the same small, perfect grape again and again. I walk through the house reciting it and leave its letters falling through the air of every room. I stand by the big…
a poem
This, from the Dish, a poem by Hafiz which I think is quite lovely:
a poem for sunday
Anastasia & Sandman by Larry Levis The brow of a horse in that moment when The horse is drinking water so deeply from a trough It seems to inhale the water, is holy. I refuse to explain. When the horse had gone the water in the trough, All through the empty summer, Went on reflecting…
an ocean full of paper boats
“I may as well admit that I have been more influenced (as a person) by my childhood readings of Tolkien and Lewis than I have been by any philosophers I read in college and grad school. The events and characters in Narnia and Middle Earth shaped my ideals, my dreams, my goals. Kant just annoyed…
Thursday Art Walk
Seven Spirits of God, by William Blake __________________________________________ and, from The Everlasting Gospel The vision of Christ that thou dost see Is my vision’s greatest enemy. Thine has a great hook nose like thine; Mine has a snub nose like to mine. Thine is the Friend of all Mankind; Mine speaks in parables to the…
on a roll
Original poetry by Erik Kain.
a poem I wrote today
Original poetry by Erik Kain.
