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Showing posts from November, 2009

Poetry Criticism With Bill Knott

He doesn't avoid his feelings, which I respect . I always wished there were people like him in my crit groups--people who just fucking said what they thought regardless of feelings. That's much easier to deal with, I think, than people who read and try to quietly kiss your ass with gentle words when they really hate your work. That's what criticism is for, pointing out the weaknesses. I admit I'm too nice most of the time, though somewhat less so these days, since I'm no longer teacher material--at least in a university. I think everybody is too nice. Anyway--on to the criticism. fugh The Shampoo (From The Nightingales) by David Wojahn How long it must have been, the girl’s hair, cascading down her shoulders almost to her waist, light brown and heavy as brocade: the story I’m remembering of N’s, remembering as my own hair’s washed and cut, the salt-and-pepper cuneiform to frill my barber’s smock. Arts and Science is expanding. The wall to th

The Intarwebz Iz Gud 2day: Lynette Roberts and James Dickey

  from Flashpoint   Yeah. I read a bit of this post by Johnathon Williams in my morning blog constitutional, and liked what I read of Lynette Roberts . I like discovering poets few think of any more ( Keith Douglas anyone? Thanks to Ben Mazer for making me aware) or in some cases ever, so this is a great find for me, and I ordered her work. Lynette Roberts, whose poetry was championed by T. S. Eliot and Robert Graves, might fairly be claimed to be our greatest female war poet, and her work constitutes one of the most imaginative poetic responses to modern war and the home front in the English language. Her first book, Poems, was published in 1944, with a blurb from Eliot, her editor at Faber: "She has, first, an unusual gift for observation and evocation of scenery and place, whether it is in Wales or her native South America; second, a gift for verse construction, influenced by the Welsh tradition, which is evident in her freer verse as well as in stricter

Five New Poems at the Dead Mule

I would have said on the Mule, but I didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea. These are part of the last couple year's work. Poems . Still radio silence until we get moved into the new house, where I will have an entire room full of books. My library, finally.