David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: W. S. Merwin: An Appreciation
The psyche is haunted by its own swollen intimacies, Merwin’s poems remind us.
Posts by author
David Biespiel
115 posts
David Biespiel is a poet, literary critic, memoirist, and contributing writer at American Poetry Review, New Republic, New York Times, Poetry, Politico, The Rumpus, and Slate, among other publications. He is the author of numerous books, most recently The Education of a Young Poet, which was selected a Best Books for Writers by Poets & Writers, A Long High Whistle, which received the 2016 Oregon Book Award for General Nonfiction, and The Book of Men and Women, which was chosen for Best Books of the Year by the Poetry Foundation and received the 2011 Oregon Book Award for Poetry.
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: The Whitman Notebook: Which Is Ahead
Walt Whitman says that to be an American is to be a poet.
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Whitman Notebook: Summer Grass
Whatever is undiscovered in “Song of Myself” is in the soil.
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 14): “Some Grass Along a Ditch Bank”
...being on the edge of the natural world is like being on the edge of time.
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 13): “Letter to Simic from Boulder”
"Wherever you are on earth, you are safe,” writes Richard Hugo. Really?
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 12): “Shine, Perishing Republic”
Vive le resistance déjà vu, you say? Are we only a nation that forgets, a United States of Obliviousness?
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 11): “Skinhead”
Using dramatic monologue, Smith unmasks the skinhead’s anger to fend off threats to his way of life.
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 10): “The Gods”
Poetic contemplation typically is a means to container experience, like a still life.
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 9): “The City Limits”
[A] nation’s poetry degenerates if it does not embody the language of what is mysterious...
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 8): “Song of the Gourd”
“Song of the Gourd” is like an eye roll at this sort of gusto about leaving the Southland.
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Against Hatred
We poets do not believe the world belongs to us. Our existence is a miracle, and yet we know our world is limited.