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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American poetry
7 posts
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: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 1): “The Idea of Ancestry”
I know / their dark eyes, they know mine.
Reckoning with the Bros: Trump, Bly, and Swimming in the Sea of Grief
There are dark forces roiling beneath the surface of American life.
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.…
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.
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…