What Would the Community Think? November 4, 2007: Emily Warn asked me to re-post my entry on the Chicago Review articles by Young/Spahr and Ashton so it can appear alongside hers and Alicia's. I just want to add a caveat: I wrote this post under the assumption that the CR articles to which it refers would be online. They are not. I'm not sure how much sense this post will make to you unless you [...] by Ange Mlinko

Pulling Poems Out of a Hat November 1, 2007: The first day of a new month is like the beginning of a new poem: that tantalizing musical phrase, maybe just a few words, that arouses the mind to fresh configurings. Autumn color has finally set in, making the long rays of late afternoon still redder, but it isn’t very chilly. My roses are still blooming; so are my rosemary, basil and salvia. [...] by Ange Mlinko

Panel 4: Drawing from the Past/Breaking from the Past October 26, 2007: This late in the day, the panel topic seems too close in nature to the first two. Isn’t it revealing that three out of the four panels dealt with some variation on the topic of influence, lineage, tradition—because the crisis in representation of the canon is so problematic? Because there are so many different poetries that all claim some [...] by Ange Mlinko

Panel 3: Clarity & Obscurity: The Uses and Misuses October 26, 2007: James Tate: Does a poet ever strive for obscurity? I can’t think of one. Kay Ryan: Who needs more? [laughter] Carl DennisPhillips: No one is deliberately writing so no one would understand what they’re trying to say. That would be perverse…. We had dawdled over lunch and now we were late. Having missed the opening statements, we arrived in [...] by Ange Mlinko

Panel 2: Aesthetic Lineage and Originality October 23, 2007: “Emily Dickinson was one of the three most intelligent people who ever took up writing poetry.” (more...) by Ange Mlinko

Poets Forum (Part 1) October 22, 2007: At the suggestion of my editor Emily, I attended the Academy of American Poets’ Poets Forum at Marymount College on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. With no traffic, it’s an hour’s drive from my hamlet to the most expensive neighborhood on the globe. In a moment of inattention, I nearly tripped over a teacup-something leashed by a [...] by Ange Mlinko

H is for House October 19, 2007: A is for apple. B is for butterflies. H is for housesparrow, hedgesparrow. H is for hen. C is for cat. H is for hedge, hedgehog, horsetail, hawthorn, heather, hemlock, holly, hellebore and hazel. H is for [hats?], my [hat?] H is for haberdashery, hunting, [harthing?], [halfing?], hog, horse and hiccup. W is for the wren has a loud, dramatic song [...] by Ange Mlinko

Oskar Pastior October 16, 2007: Hearing music sets time free in the ear: the ear produces free time. This insight is the basis of lease-an-ear, a thriving service branch. The free time generated with the help of leased ears can be stored, for instance on tape, which constantly augments the sum of free time because nothing is ever lost. Last year alone, on a world scale, free [...] by Ange Mlinko

Youthful Forms October 12, 2007: Dear Steve, The coincidence of adolescence and the Norton's Anthology has ruined many a productive citizen, I think. I have sometimes heard the opposite claimed -- that teaching poetry in an academic setting ruins poetry, not adulthood, for kids. But I don't remember teachers shredding poems. I do remember leafing through classroom anthologies [...] by Ange Mlinko

Drown the Resume October 10, 2007: Rigoberto may be right when he says of The Best American Poetry series that “there's something for everyone, usually, and like it or not the series is here to stay and to say something about the contemporary poetry scene.” There’s no denying po-biz exists, and this is one yardstick by which to measure the seductive racket. But I worry, given [...] by Ange Mlinko