Missing Persons October 7, 2007: There’s a scene in Val Lewton’s The Seventh Victim where one of the characters (who eats every night at the same Village restaurant, The Dante) is a poet on the trail of a Missing Person. This poet, Jason, goes to the New York Public Library and flirts with the librarian so that she’ll give him access to the index cards listing the titles [...] by Ange Mlinko

Good Taste Is the Worst Vice October 4, 2007: A few weeks ago I remarked that if I were to write a book on poetic craft, it would mainly consist of notes on craft from other disciplines like dance or music. I keep a file of such quotes (I guess this used to be called one’s “common-place book” but now it’s just an endlessly scrolling doc on a laptop). I went back to it today and saw [...] by Ange Mlinko

Breakthroughs October 1, 2007: If I had to pinpoint the moment when I stopped feeling lonely as a poet, it would have to be the day I picked up Susan Stewart’s Poetry and the Fate of the Senses at the St. Mark’s Bookshop five years or so ago. Perhaps I am reminded of it because, looking back at my previous three posts, I feel an unacknowledged debt to it. Or perhaps because [...] by Ange Mlinko

J’aime/Je n’aime pas September 28, 2007: Let’s take a break from theorizing (or not). Let’s play the J’aime/je n’aime pas game, which I am totally cribbing from the bloggers Jenny Davidson and Ed Park, who cribbed it from Roland Barthes, who said: (more...) by Ange Mlinko

Experience, Figuration, the Avant-Garde, My Grouse September 25, 2007: Nada Gordon wrote in this comment box: Ange writes that,"the fiercest experimental writing... has always been related to experience in some way." Ange, could you expand on that? It seems to me like a huge statement and I'm not convinced it's true. (more...) by Ange Mlinko

Senses and Lilies September 23, 2007: I heard a fascinating piece of gossip the other day. I heard that Helen Vendler doesn’t believe good poems are ambiguous! I call it gossip because I heard it secondhand from someone who had heard her say this at some talk or other. At any rate, it led to lively speculations about what separated good old High-Modernist Ambiguity from bad [...] by Ange Mlinko

Nowhere’s Vernacular September 18, 2007: I [heart] A.E. Stallings’s post on the vernacular: Do I think the “plain-spoken” impetus in poetry has gone to far? Yes. "Plain-spoken" often just means dull and listless and unimaginative writing. Real plain-spoken people are more imaginative than that. “Idiomatic” after all, is Greek for “individual,” for “peculiar.” There are [...] by Ange Mlinko

Champagne September 16, 2007: These Jeanne Moreau-ish Bourgeois eyeballs (cast upward as, we are told, is proper to champagne sipping) led me to the entrance of the Williams College Museum of Art in a faint drizzle. Autumn has a light touch here: a burgundy fringe on the roadside, gold and blush in haptic patches on the tree crowns, like the burnish on a pear. Inside, [...] by Ange Mlinko

About Reviews September 12, 2007: I wrote a comment in response to Simon DeDeo's response to Don Share's post below. It dovetails with Rigoberto's call this week for more reviewing. I don't disagree with Rigoberto. As an author, I loved getting reviews. As a critic, I like reading them, especially if the reviewer has style. But what's in it for the reviewer? If everything you [...] by Ange Mlinko

Whither Beauty September 10, 2007: A few months ago I read Toni Bentley’s and Gelsey Kirkland’s ballet memoirs, and acquired a bad case of self-pity: here was an art so unlike poetry, where the practice was excruciatingly difficult, but the reward so concrete. As in sports, one can still speak of beauty in ballet. Brian Phillips, in his article “Poetry and the Problem of [...] by Ange Mlinko