I am on my way to Oxford, Mississippi where I will be reading on Friday. I’ve never been to Mississippi before, and though all sorts of poems and stories and songs come to mind when I think of Mississippi, because I realize it will be springtime in the South and because I love springtime in the South (the pear trees, the cherries, the forsythia, oh my!), I am thinking, most often, about the poem “My Mississippi Spring.”

“Although the literal act of putting words on the page is a solitary activity, no writer is ever alone. There are always those mentors, those students, who engage in a communal effort of creation.”
–Lee Martin

(Prageeta Sharma, Patrick Rosal, Myung Mi Kim & Regie Cabico at the Kundiman workshop/retreat)

It’s been a particularly busy and exhausting week. As Thursday approached, I considered what I would write about here on Harriet. I am committed to the idea of discussing, every Thursday, what I am reading that is exciting me, and yet today that didn’t feel quite right. What I want to share, instead, are a few of the poems that keep me coming back to poetry even when I believe I might just be too tired to read more than three lines of anything my hands hold before my eyes.
I had a conversation yesterday afternoon about how deeply Richmond, VA honors the memory of Larry Levis.

Three of the grand mysteries: What makes a poem? What makes a stanza? What makes a poetic line?

I’ve just returned from a stunning performance of György Ligeti’s 1965 Requiem. Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, introduced the Requiem via a rather thorough and moving exposition of a poem by Ranier Marie Rilke.

My friends are having a public marriage ceremony soon, and they’ve asked for help choosing a poem for their special day. I’ve put forward several options already, but I’m curious what suggestions the Harriet community might have.
I’ve spent at least eight hours of each of the past four days reading other people’s poems. I am attending to word choice, comma placement, the arrangement of lines on the page. I am remembering, in this process, how vulnerable we poets make ourselves each time we take first the risk of writing poems and then the subsequent risk of sending these poems out into the world. This can be a terrifying prospect, writing and then sharing poetry. What I like to read, now and again, are poems that speak directly to the perils of this art.
I thought of this idea when I ran across this poem:
Say what you will about anthologies. For my part, I love these treasure troves. Much of my early exposure to new work or, to put it better, work that is new to me, comes through anthologies. Given the opportunity I, like O’Hara, would certainly “buy/ an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets/in Ghana are doing these days.” I owe many of my love affairs with poets to the anthologies that first introduced me to their work. My bookshelves boast many spine-battered anthologies, favorites from my teens and early twenties. Many of these collections I still read and teach from today.
I am going to assume, because you are here, reading this site, that you like to read. I am also going to assume, because you are reading this site, that you like to read good writing. My cousin always warned about what might come of you and me should we assume too frequently (if you don’t know the punch line, I’ll just say there’s a draft animal involved), but I am going to assume the risk of assuming you might occasionally want a tip or two about what to read. If that’s the case, visit Harriet each Thursday. I’ll tell you what’s keeping me happy that day.

Thom Donovan
Bhanu Kapil
Fred Moten
Craig Santos Perez
Sina Queyras
Sotère Torregian
Cathy Halley
Michael Marcinkowski
Travis Nichols
Fred Sasaki
Don Share
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