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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Join NOW!The psyche is haunted by its own swollen intimacies, Merwin’s poems remind us.
...more“Song of the Gourd” is like an eye roll at this sort of gusto about leaving the Southland.
...moreI know / their dark eyes, they know mine.
...moreThere are dark forces roiling beneath the surface of American life.
...moreBut 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, Tim Ellison writes about wandering through Boston with American poetry in his mind.
...moreNow in silence, mute, a place still quiet/within reason, ear-protected, I hear/the flow and pump of blood.
...moreIf 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 write about the necessity and indelibility of poetry at the most basic levels: For all […]
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