[photo of Keats' Tombstone by Carlo Tancredi]
A comment at lunch today that made me realize I don’t talk much about formal or classic poetry. Reading this blog gives the impression that my poetic interests lie with a relatively narrow band of contemporary and free verse. It’s actually quite the opposite!
The [...]

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Love him or hate him, Pinsky has created a good model to keep in mind when considering questions of poetry, poets, and poetics. Answer the questions with poems. It’s at least as exact as the philosophical meandering I’m likely to subject others to at the drop of a hat.
It also gives me an excuse to [...]

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An interesting post on the idea of “post-avant” poetics by Reginald Shepherd sparks a fiery comments conversation. Overall pretty enlightening, though the whole thing takes a turn about 2/3 of the way in that I don’t completely understand.
The issue of politics and poetry is very frustrating to me. I guess I’m a fuddy-duddy traditionalist mainstreamer [...]

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Responding to this bit on a mailing list:

this is where I think ron silliman has been very
insightful in his critiques of the “school of quietude.” it’s not so
much an aesthetic as it is an unwillingness to see the existence of
other aesthetics. What’s at issue here isn’t equal representation,
but the acknowledgment of diversity and of the [...]

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from Poetry:
…in “The Origin of the Work of Art,” he issues a particular invitation to poets, arguing that poetry is in some way the model for all other art forms, and the exemplary activity of human beings. The poet, he writes, “uses the word—not, however, like ordinary speakers and writers who have to use them [...]

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A snippet from a newspaper article on Lawrence Ferlinghetti:

“Poetry can save the world by transforming consciousness,” he argues in “Poetry as Insurgent Art,” a slim hardback pocketbook manifesto of prose epigrams, seemingly addressed to poets and those who might be.
“I am signaling you through the flames,” he begins in the new section from which his [...]

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Noted on Harriet, this quote by Christian Bök:
“Postmodern life has utterly recoded the avant-garde demand for radical newness. Innovation in art no longer differs from the kind of manufactured obsolescence that has come to justify advertisements for “improved” products; nevertheless, we have to find a new way to contribute by generating a “surprise” (a term [...]

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I’m the first to admit my almost complete ignorance of the work of Ezra Pound. I duly did required reading in college, read some of the translations from the Chinese, and skimmed some of The Cantos. But I never really paid a lot of attention to his work and have generally understood his influence through [...]

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JforJames sez:
Sometimes when faced with difficult or complex poetry, the detective’s words to Jake Gittes at the end of the movie Chinatown come to mind: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”
Amen.

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While browsing (OK, egosurfing, but only because I am curious– and a little frightened– about what Bob might have to say about this under-read mainstreamer’s offhand, rarely-edited blog) I not only discovered Bob Grumman’s coinage stasguard, “defender of the stasis quo” who, among other things, assume “without reflection that the small slice of the arts [...]

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I came across this phrase today– living intentionally– that had never really registered with me in the past (perhaps because I am allergic to self-help books) but is a perfect summation of what all my recent lifestyle changes are about. Talking too much about such changes invokes a kind of superstition… too often the choice [...]

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Eric Rosenfield thinks the short story is dead and then points to a dissection of the Best American Short Stories as proof!? BAS hasn’t been representative of the most vital aspects of the short story for decades (if ever). It, like the Best American Poetry series, is representative of a very narrow, exceedingly mainstream slice [...]

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What a bizarre interpretation of Gioia and Oliver. Has he read any of their poetry? How about the poets each has championed? I’m guessing not. Yes, they both feel that form has been given a bum rap in the contemporary scene, but it’s far from the ONLY kind of poetry they are supporting. The essence [...]

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