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.
...today’s poetry apologists for the Iraq war just keep repeating their intelligence error odes. Wouldn’t it be better, however, if they would address the horror of the failed effort in Iraq?
Writing requires sustained attention to what figures, disfigures, and refigures our imaginations and includes a vision that takes every experience into account.
Every once in a while over a period of a few weeks or more I compile some objectives for poetry in the form of a list, something I call one-sentence lectures.
As a poet, you seek to blend your imagination with what you are both witnessing and imagining: "The purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person."
Becoming a poet means to think about delight and distress with equal poise. Becoming a poet means to embrace the child of your imagination where resentment is understood.