American poetry
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: W. S. Merwin: An Appreciation
The psyche is haunted by its own swollen intimacies, Merwin’s poems remind us.
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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.
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 1): “The Idea of Ancestry”
I know / their dark eyes, they know mine.
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Reckoning with the Bros: Trump, Bly, and Swimming in the Sea of Grief
There are dark forces roiling beneath the surface of American life.
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Of Boston and Poetry
But any poet today who shared Longfellow’s taste would be laughed out of the room. He wanted heroism; we want the ordinary. He wanted grand dramas; we want insightful understatement. He wanted music; we want images. Over at the Ploughshares blog,…
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Where I Write #27: Now In Silence, Mute
Now in silence, mute, a place still quiet/within reason, ear-protected, I hear/the flow and pump of blood.
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The State of American Poetry
If you liked David Biepsiel’s State of American Poetry address, here’s a nice counterpart by Natasha Trethewey at the Virginia Quarterly Review. “Despair about the place of poetry in American culture is nothing new,” she begins, and goes on to…