Author Archive
Abigail Deutsch
saying goodbye
I don’t go out with bangs, or whimpers, or wimps (generally).
Sometimes I daydream about going out with Tennyson, who wrote some pretty good poetry about endings (graver endings, arguably, than the termination of my Harrieteering). But that seems a little heavy, so I’ll stick with the obvious alternative: the Muppets.
Abigail Deutsch
what’s cooking at poets house
I like the name “Poets House” because—while probably intended to read as the possessive Poets’ House—the phrase instead asserts something rather nice about poets. Poets don’t just browse and carouse: they house. And maybe, someday, they’ll house me.
Abigail Deutsch
doing time, and rhyme, with “invictus”
Clint Eastwood’s rather long film Invictus shares its title with the rather short poem that inspired Nelson Mandela throughout his years in jail. “They’re just words,” explains Morgan Freeman, who plays an endearing Mandela during his first days of South African leadership. “But they helped me to stand when all I wanted to do was lie down.”
This film about the 1995 rugby match that tested and defined Mandela’s authority occasionally made me want to lie down, partly because—like the titular poem—it tends to trumpet rather than whisper. “Times change, and we need to change as well,” opines South African soccer captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) to his teammates before sweeping out of the room.
Abigail Deutsch
ghosts and anne carson haunt nyu
“The radio, the salad. Some of which, white—“
“Was it a Thursday? Was it a Friday? White stuff exploding—“
“Some of which, white, looks good in the salad—“
The audience of Ghostparts, an interactive performance staged at NYU’s Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House last week, shuffles up carpeted stairs.
Abigail Deutsch
Marianne Moore in the Village Voice
During my happy days working in the arts department of the Village Voice, I discovered this previously unknown letter by Marianne Moore in one of the paper’s earliest issues:
To the Jasmine’s Kitten contest editor:
Dear Madam:
I think I should have him because I think her [sic] would like to have me. But if I win him, please give him to Mr. Balaban, or his sister, since I have not a yard, a tree, or a fence.
Marianne Moore
Cumberland Street, Brooklyn
Abigail Deutsch
lost poets and found poetry in washington, d.c.
(Photo Credit: Thomas Sayers Ellis)
I’m good at getting lost. A few years ago, living in a French town so small even its residents had barely heard of it, I lost my way at least once a week. I was also known to lose the bakery, the drugstore, the school where I was teaching, and my colleagues at that school. Streets rayed out from the town center like the arms of a starfish–a crippled starfish whose limbs twisted and gnarled.
Walking in Washington, D.C.—the site of the Poetry Foundation’s new online tour—several weeks ago, I found myself transfixed by street names. Not because I was lost, though I was, but because those names follow particular patterns. First they run from A through Z (A Street, B Street, etc.). Then they run A-Z again, but with bisyllabic words (Euclid, Fairmont, Girard, Harvard). Then they run A-Z yet again, but with trisyllabic words (Allison, Buchanan, Crittenden, Decatur). Any street might change names farther west or east — but the changed name must obey the same rules determining the original one (so Allison turns into Albemarle, both trisyllabic words starting with “A”).
Abigail Deutsch
dubious poetry: the palin comparison
Many have noted the poetry latent in Sarah Palin’s speech. Now that she’s published a memoir, Going Rogue, many are noting the non-poetry of her non-prose.
But who would have imagined that Palin had a poetic forerunner, a partner in rhyme, a fellow Bard of Bad? Julia A. Moore (1847-1920), popularly called the “Sweet Singer of Michigan,” produced reams of writing that soon became known as the worst of the verse. If Palin wrote a poem, I posit, it would be this definitive work of Moore’s.
Abigail Deutsch
second sex takes second place?
I own a pink skirt, a pink dress, a pink scarf, a pink coat, three pink sweaters, and six pink shirts. Each time I shop for clothes, my eyes wander toward another rose tee, and my fingers fondle another salmon sarong, and I ask myself, Why?
But I know why. I love pink because I am Woman.
Obviously.
The more serious implications of being Woman—and Literary Woman in particular—have lately drawn a lot of press. First, as poet Steve Fellner noted in his blog, men beat out women four to one in the prestigious, and historically male-skewed, Whiting Awards for emerging writers. Second, in a move that attracted much more attention than the Whiting wrong, Publishers Weekly compiled a boys-only top 10 books list of the year. The extended list of 100 best books featured 29 female writers.
Abigail Deutsch
Writing on the wall
White space criss-crossed yesterday’s New York Times opinion page like mortar. Uneven in length and width, stanzas gave the impression of crumbling brick. Poem titles appeared painted on, recalling graffiti.
In light of the endless debate over Whether Good Political Poetry Exists, the commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a wall of poetry–a throwback to the days when poems regularly appeared in newspapers–gave me a case of the grins. The poetry wall struck me as an editorial eye-roll, a visually complex, literarily ambitious “duh.” (Just the same, it’s worth bearing that debate in mind while reading these poems, which, like the rough-hewn wall, can feel uneven.)
Abigail Deutsch
literary gatherings: a schmoozer’s guide
The literati are like aliens. Some are cute. Some are hostile. All talk funny, and all require diplomatic outreach. (Daniel Nester recently described this phenomenon in his riotous, depressing takedown of the New York poetry scene, “Goodbye to All Them.”)
I here present the strategies I have observed and developed at literary gatherings, in hopes that you, reader, will not someday find yourself lying on a couch in a grungily chic neighborhood of San Francisco at 4 a.m., claiming, along with a bald, 13-year-old Norwegian you’ve just met, to be a Macarthur Fellow.
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Thom Donovan
Bhanu Kapil
Fred Moten
Craig Santos Perez
Sina Queyras
Sotère Torregian
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Cathy Halley
Michael Marcinkowski
Travis Nichols
Fred Sasaki
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RECENT COMMENTS
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Michael R. wrote:
>If you’d been reading, you’d realize that the point of that passage is ... MORE »
Kent Johnson | 03.21.10 -
Very cool. I had not heard of Piet Hein, and will look him up. A ... MORE »
LH | 03.21.10 -
Definitely very cool, Craig. Very much liked kari edwards' book and will put this on ... MORE »
Sina Queyras | 03.21.10 -
Yay, Janet! MORE »
Mary Meriam | 03.20.10 -
@Sina:
I have not heard of an opera singing poet,
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Colin Ward | 03.20.10
Beyond Careerism? (Redistributing Poetic... (31)
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To Sonnet, to Son-net, Tuscon Net (55)
All sides now: a correspondence with Lisa... (4)
Women’s History Month: A Salute (3)
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IN THIS ISSUE: March 2010
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.
CHICAGO EVENTS
Poetry Off the Shelf: David Baker
Fri, March 26th, 6:00 PM
Open Books
213 West Institute Place
Free admission
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