It is fitting that National Poetry Month begins with April Fool’s Day. Poetry is, in fact, the most “foolish” of literary pursuits. I live in a country founded by Puritans, immigrants, and pioneers. These groups hold in common practicality as a crucial value: the best work is useful work. In fact, this value took on …
“Every evening / words /–not stars–light the sky. // No rest in life / like life itself.” –Umberto Saba, “Three Cities,” trans. Stephen Sartarelli “I hear that the axe has flowered, / I hear that the place can’t be named, // I hear that the bread which looks at him / heals the hanged man, …
The Academy Of American Poets recently announced their mobile poetry website, complete with numerous poems arranged by theme or occasion and by form. Now, if anyone accuses you of being shallow, you can call up Paul Celan’s “Fugue of Death” on your iPhone, recite a few lines, and quickly prove them wrong.
Ack! It has been the equivalent of about a decade in blogging time since my last post. And now, it has come to this: pens. I have been through my share of felt-tip, rollerball, and fountain pens over time. As you can imagine, once in awhile a well-meaning acquaintance or relation, armed with the recent …
I received a phone call yesterday from The Atlantic to inform me that I have received an honorable mention in their Student Writing Contest. I was encouraged to enter, in part, by their listing of Pacific University’s MFA program, in which I am currently enrolled, as one of the top five programs in the nation …
Honorable Mention, Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest Read More »
Reading the admonitions against earnestness from the old ghost that appears in Heaney’s “Station Island” part XII brings to mind Patrick Kavanagh. Whether or not Kavanagh was the conscious model for this character in Heaney’s poem, the by turns severe and antic nature of this individual has Kavanagh written all over it. In his poem, …
Heaney Astray: the Importance of Not Being So Earnest Read More »
