In my lecture on “Emulation, Originality and the Writing Tradition,” I drew on Mary Oliver in A Poetry Handbook discussing a quote by Flaubert she keeps close to her writing desk, and which she originally came upon in Van Gogh’s letters: “Talent is long patience, and originality an effort of will and of intense observation.” …
Jack Gilbert’s The Great Fires is a meditation on solitude and loss. In fact, it contains many of the elements of the medieval Christian meditative tradition. In his introduction to The Meditative Poem, Louis L. Martz describes this tradition as producing a poem “in which a man projects a self upon a mental stage, and …
We went up to Hertfordshire to visit Val’s parents yesterday. On the way to our train in King’s Cross station, we passed a bricked-in archway with half a luggage trolley stuck into it, as if passing straight through the wall. Above the trolley, a standard train station placard announced: “Platform 9 3/4”. That’s right–the magic …
Although Charles Simic was recently appointed Poet Laureate of the United States, that is not the kind of title I want to write about right now. In fact, there is so much to admire in his Selected Poems 1963-2003, that examining his choice of poem titles almost seems myopic. It has often been my experience, …
Proofs & Theories is a remarkable collection of essays in which Glück speaks candidly about her experience and thoughts on writing. I want to read these notes on craft not so much because she is a great essayist or critic, but because I value illumination into the mind of such a remarkable poet. Most striking …
I did it–I survived my first semester in the Pacific University MFA program. Actually, I thrived. Some days, the prospect of reading and writing at this level is what kept getting me out of bed in the morning. Joe‘s insights into my work have been outstanding, and I have fallen in love with poets like …
