There is so much to admire in Winter Stars that it is difficult to know where to begin. One small but interesting angle on Levis’ work is to notice how often he describes “what is not.” He seems, in this way, to be drawing circles around possibilities in life, keenly aware of his place outside …
Finding the remarkable in the ordinary is a challenge many writers have taken up. The idea that what you choose to focus on in the mundane world, and how you choose to describe it, really describes the author’s inner landscape–is nothing new. It dates back to ancient Chinese nature poets, and probably further. Stephen Dunn …
“I have defined poetry as a ‘passionate pursuit of the Real.’” -Czeslaw Milosz, The Witness of Poetry After finishing The Witness of Poetry, I found myself mourning the loss of a man I never met and mourning, most importantly, a mind and spirit so capable of characterizing the poetics of the past century–and thereby helping …
“Vivas for those who have failed.” -Walt Whitman Reading Philip Levine’s New Selected Poems isn’t easy when you’re already down. He writes about the same thing in every poem: the loneliness of the universe–conveyed through down-and-out Detroit, which sometimes makes guest appearances in California, Spain or Italy. It is always, however, the same droning voice …
“…at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously–I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason” –John Keats, letter to George and Thomas Keats, 21 …
“I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on.” –Hamlet, I.V Galway Kinnell’s The Book of Nightmares–in the tradition of Howl or The Wasteland–does not so much strike a nerve in the culture (as Eliot and Ginsberg did) as much as it plumbs deep into timeless archetypal motifs of death, madness …
