I feel it is a rarity for poets to allow themselves to play linguistically with their poems, or maybe just play in general. So many poets take themselves and their work so seriously, somehow along the line their poems become a monotonous, intelligent whine. This is not, in any way, the case for Kevin Young's Jelly Roll. The collection of poems...
Monday, May 10, 2010
The Wild Iris
In terms of who I am indebted to as a poet, Luise Gluck just recently made the list. Her book of poetry The Wild Iris is one of the most brilliant collections I have read in a long time. I will be honest, the fact that I am whole heartedly obsessed with gardening may play into it. It is a desire of mine to one day live on a self sustaining commune,...
Howl- To See With the Eyes of the Angels
In William Carlos Williams introduction to Allen Ginesbergs Howl he says, "Poets are damned by they are not blind, they see with the eyes of the angels. This poet [Ginsberg] sees through and all around the horrors he partakes of in the very intimate details of his poem. He avoids nothing but experiences it to the hilt." If Howl by Allen Ginsberg...
The mastery of Rainer Maria Rilke
"For there are moments when something new has entered into us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy perplexity, and everything in us withdraws, a stillness comes, and the new which no one knows, stands in the midst of it and is silent." Rainer Maria Rilke said this to a 'young poet' in his eighth letter of Letters to a Young Poet. The...
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