The first fall drizzle blew into Fayetteville this weekend, and though it wasn’t yet cold enough to kindle the fireplaces, someone in the neighborhood tried. The smoke came wafting down the road and through my open window. There is a gathering up in Autumn, and not of leaves. I smell it in the fires and […]
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THIS WEEK’S TOP 10 POETIC PICKS
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Seth Haines. 1 Art In case you haven’t heard, which is to say in case you live under a rock, the iPhone 5 launched yesterday. Apple’s newest version of their popular telephone/personal computing device is reportedly thinner, lighter, and at twenty times as awesome as […]
Poet’s Penance (Part 1)
Poet: Bless me, Father, for I am a poet, and I have no idea what that means. Priest: I absolve you from your sin. […]
Thomas Gray and the Elegy
Thomas Gray and the Elegy: From the beginning to the epitaph at the end, the poem is shot through with meditations, reflections and allusions to death and the end of life…
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
1 Art For a second, I thought I was looking at one of those excruciating grade school art projects where we cut squares of crêpe paper, wrapped them around our fingertips, dipped into Elmer’s glue and then stuck them down with 3, 762 other tiny pieces of colored crêpe paper on a tag board cut-out to make […]
New Release with Solid Tribute to Adrienne Rich
From T. S. Poetry Press, publisher of the Oprah Summer Read The Whipping Club, comes a fiction debut that includes a solid tribute to the late Adrienne Rich. The Novelist, by L.L. Barkat, explores themes of origins and consciousness in the writer and the woman. Readers familiar with the Adrienne Rich volume The Dream of […]
Best Stories About Writing: The Novelist!
From T. S. Poetry Press, publisher of the Oprah Summer Read The Whipping Club, comes one of the best stories about writing! The Novelist, by L.L. Barkat, explores themes of writer’s block and self-esteem in the writer. Readers familiar with the Adrienne Rich volume The Dream of a Common Language will recognize subtle images of […]
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Seth Haines. 1 Art Is nothing left sacred? Evidently an elderly townswoman in Spain failed to ask this question before attempting to “touch up” a nineteenth century fresco of Christ, the “ecce homo.” Painted by famous Spanish artist Elias Garcia Martinez in the sanctuary of […]
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Will Willingham. 1 Art As an insurance adjuster, I find the term “perfect storm” an unfortunate combination of words, unless we simply mean the sort of storm which generates a lot of business for me but in which no one is hurt and only easily […]
The Poet of the Workplace
I generally had fine English teachers in high school and college, teachers who emphasized poetry as much as they did other literary forms. From The Iliad through Beowulf and Chaucer, and then on to Romantics, Victorians and Moderns, I likely read as much poetry as I did anything else. And then, for close to a […]
Bored by Your Apps? There’s an Oprah Book App for That
Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago at the Midwest Writers Workshop, I was fortunate to work with Kathleen Rooney, an extraordinary poetry teacher. This literary superhero somehow got each member of her workshop to produce and/or revise about a half dozen poems in just as many hours. She also spoke on writing memoirs and getting published […]
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Seth Haines. 1 Art Since my introduction to Bottle Rocket, I have been a shameless apologist for Wes Anderson. His unabashed use of obscure music, vibrant color, and awkward, character-driven storytelling has led to some of the most artistic film-making in recent memory. His latest release, Moonrise […]
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Will Willingham 1 Art What would you do if a mystery artist left exquisite sculptures on literary doorsteps all over your city? Well, if you’re Edinburgh, City of Literature, you put them all on display in a national tour. Last year, an unknown artist crafted […]
Poetry in the Sunken Garden
Madeleine did not want to go to the poetry festival in July, because no one else’s mother forces children to go to poetry festivals. She lowered her hat down over her forehead, leaving only a glower visible. No one. Else. She wanted to know why. Not a promising conversation in which to explore the ineffable […]
The Anthologist: Motion
I found Paul Chowder at the Tip O’Neill building. He was in the passport office cajoling the bureaucrats into renewing his travel documents just days before his departure to Switzerland for some big international poetry doings because he didn’t realize he’d expired. I was there for my once-a-decade passport renewal even though I had no […]
This Week’s Top Ten Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Kimberlee Conway Ireton. 1 Art Mandy Kahn creates community poetry installations. For art galleries. At least, that’s the dream. It’s sort of like improv comedy using lines of poetry, only a lot more lyrical. Al Black used to travel the roads of Florida selling paintings […]
The Anthologist: Pluck the Day
I scheduled a date with Paul Chowder on Friday. We were supposed to hang out and talk about Sara Teasdale. He’d been going on about how some poets spend too much time thinking about death, like going to a movie and just waiting for the credits, which my dad taught me are very interesting if you […]
July Mosaics: Concrete Poetry
In the summer of 2008, the local Barnes & Noble invited Geoffrey Brock to read from his first book of Poetry, Weighing Light. Metal folding chairs were placed between the do-it-your self section and the clearance picture-book aisle. I’m not sure whether it was the ideal spot for a poetry reading, what with patrons whizzing through […]
Journey into Poetry: Matthew Kreider
So much of life depends upon the lighting. Under the fluorescent bulbs of Grade 9 English, I turned to page 646, or something like that, and discovered poetry. Unit VII probably had a catchy and alliterative title, but I don’t remember it. I remember seeing bold-faced words, eerie line breaks (though I didn’t know the […]
This Week’s Top 10 Poetic Picks
The best in poetry (and poetic things), this week with Matthew Kreider.