Harriet

Lavinia Greenlaw

Read the foreign and the dead

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I grew up in a house full of books and made my way through the shelves.
There wasn’t much else to do.
I didn’t have a clue who anyone was, so I read poems not poets.
Those who formed me were from mythical places: Eastern Europe (lurking behind the Iron Curtain) and America (lurking behind the album cover and cinema screen).
They took me outside and so I got to see in.

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3 Comments for “Read the foreign and the dead”

  1. Lavinia Greenlaw, I wish you would write more. Your posts make me feel less alone. — Ange

    Posted By: Ange Mlinko on September 30, 2008 at 8:13 am
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  2. “Read poems, not poets” is as a good a prescription. I wonder what would become of the current leading lights if we all applied that standard.

    Posted By: Joseph Hutchison on September 30, 2008 at 8:19 am
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  3. I doubt they would dim, Joseph.

    Posted By: Lbehrendt on September 30, 2008 at 6:33 pm
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IN THIS ISSUE: March 2010

Poetry Magazine

A selection of new work from Dorothea Grossman; new poems by Lavinia Greenlaw, David Yezzi, A.E. Stallings, Gerald Stern, and Dan Gerber; translations of Carlo Betocchi, and Mahmoud Darwish; an Editorial on Ruth Lilly; an exchange between Ilya Kaminsky and Adam Kirsch; an essay by Chen Li; and a review by Daisy Fried.

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