poetry
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Poetic Lives Online: Links by Brian Spears
You would not believe the crazy crap that’s happened the last two times I tried to do this column, but I’m back at least for this week. For Rumpus Poetry Book Club members, save this Tuesday for our conversation with…
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When Tar Roads Came In Barefoot Age
Les Murray seems to want to make his experiences into some kind of shared history. In fact, this blurred line between personal memory and shared history is the spine to this body of poems.
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I Remember a Black Fog
Cedar Sigo avoids the usual pitfalls when exploring queer identity, minority identity and a political perspective thinking progressives can work with. He isn’t trite. He is never overwrought, and he brings a kinetic ardor to every line.
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Victor Martinez, Chicano Poet/Author Passed Way Feb. 18, 2011
On February 18 Mission District photographer Linda Wilson, long time staff member of El Tecolote, the bilingual newspaper of San Francisco, called me at home to let me know that my friend of more than 33 years, Chicano poet/author Victor…
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The Air in the Cages is Dust
One of the great strengths of this book is Flynn’s refusal to luxuriate in self-importance. Instead, he displays a consistent awareness that the poetry of war is not war itself, but dwells in the incorporeal rather than the actual.
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Monstrous Poetry
Poets in Wisconsin are turning monstrous. The writer-artists behind the Monsters of Poetry reading series in Madison have been busy making self-portraits and collages that depict themselves — and the very idea of poetry — as the beastly, macabre stuff…
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Like an Amputee’s Phantom Itch
Whether you’re an admirer or a stranger to her work, Rachel McKibbens awakens and haunts with selfless honesty.
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An Open Letter from Claudia Rankine
Editor’s note: If you want some background on this, you can go to Claudia Rankine’s site and click on the “AWP” link. Dear friends, As many of you know I responded to Tony Hoagland’s poem “The Change” at AWP. I…
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The Whole World Clanked Like an Iron Shovel
The horror of watching the self separate from the self—the schism of self-awareness—it’s almost vertigo-inducing. Kocot’s gift as a poet is being able to explain such complexity with such uncompromised frankness.
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Of Course They’re Staring
The poems in The Book of Frank capture moments, and they don’t explain themselves. But, cumulatively, they invoke a sense of what it is like to be almost supernaturally sensitive, empathic, curious, responsive. In short: what it feels like to…
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The H.D. Book: A Clarion Call for all Artists and Writers
In school I took a class on female poets and was instantly taken with the poetry of H.D., especially her later work Trilogy, a savage and mythic poem about rediscovering meaning in the ruins of war. One of the founding…
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A Conversation So Imperfectly Understood
Rosanna Warren’s tautly elegant poetry in her collection Ghost in a Red Hat captivates me. Warren does not aim for obscure language and obstructed meaning; she carefully and clearly reveals her intent in writing her poems.