We’d Rather Have the Iceberg than the Ship April 10, 2011: Rachel Zucker’s timely post on the timeless immediately brought a certain poem to mind. Then when I saw Kathleen Rooney’s post about the Titanic (sinking like an Oreo in milk!), I thought she had beat me to the punch. The Titanic looms large (as it were) in our household, on account of our having a six-year old boy who can’t get enough of [...] by A.E. Stallings

Thinking of Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995) April 8, 2011: Wanda Coleman’s eloquent post “To Fill the Absence” made me think of ways in which remembering can teach us so much. And Rigoberto’s inimitable combination of cheerleader and reprimanding school ma’am in his piece, “Casa Pequeñita”, reminded me of the importance of giving thanks. For some reason, my mind went to Toni Cade [...] by Kwame Dawes

Questions for Poetry #2 April 7, 2011: Many thanks to everyone who answered, or wrote around, or entertained, Question #1 (In the 22nd century, what will the line look like, or do?) As promised, here are my imaginings around the question: (more...) by Gillian Conoley

The Bounce and The Roll April 6, 2011: Marjorie Perloff has claimed that, often, a poet's career is rarely made on one book, rather it's the long and slow accrual of publications, activities, community service, and so forth that firmly establish one's reputation. A perfect example of this would be the career trajectory of Charles Bernstein. While it's hard to name Bernstein's "best" or [...] by Kenneth Goldsmith

ON TIMELESSNESS April 6, 2011: The business of trying to write timeless poems reminds me of Langston Hughes’ declaration in a 1926 essay that a black poet who wants to be just a poet, not a black poet really wants to be white. Hughes makes the issue about the poet, and maybe unfairly distracts us by that gambit. But the really question has to do with the poem. That is what [...] by Kwame Dawes

Questions I Don’t Understand #2 April 5, 2011: Rachel Zucker: “Is it more important to you that your poems be timeless or timely?” I want my poems to be as good as I can make them. Timely or timeless doesn’t address that. I understand this to be a question about the journalistic content of poetry, or else a question about an individual writer’s relationship to current fashions in [...] by Daisy Fried

To Fill the Absence April 4, 2011: ...and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny…. —from William Cullen Bryant’s "Thanatopsis" "Thanatos." The young man who uttered the word didn’t know it had been years since I’d heard it or any variation on it. It immediately lanced me, [...] by Wanda Coleman

Casa Pequeñita April 4, 2011: I’m thrilled to see some of my favorite people on Harriet — Ada, Barbara Jane, Bhanu, Alicia Stallings, Patricia S., among others (I’ll get to Kwame in a future post) — these are poets whose work and panache I admire. It also appears our paths cross more often than not, one way or another — the nature of the po-biz, I suppose. [...] by Rigoberto González

Questions for Poetry I April 2, 2011: In the 22nd century, what will the line look like and do?  Will the line continue to have its traditional roots ("traditional" not meaning middle road but rather a haunting presence of what the line has been in the past centuries however shaky and nonsequential)?  Will the line of Williams (short, aware of its breath both at beginning and end) [...] by Gillian Conoley

Poems of sorrow and grieving for Japan March 18, 2011: If poetry is good in the ways that we hope it is, then the despair generated by the ongoing crisis in Japan may be at least partially counteracted by poetry’s power to crystallize and to connect. Poetry can serve as a link between our individual despair and a more universal sorrow, between our personal, inarticulate confusion and a more eloquent [...] by Poetry Foundation