Poetry is, sadly, one of the "hundred things people rarely look at." Check back here for what I've discovered lately that's worth more than a look.
May 2, 2010
I will be on cyber radio today! The lovely and talented Joelle Jameson invited me to co-host her show, "High Volumes." We did an hour-long segment on place and location---listen live today at 1:00pm to hear us reading our favorite poems from all over the world, and some of our own stuff as well. This show will be archived on May 9th, so if you miss it today, you can always listen to it for about a month after this.
Show: cyberstationusa.com (click on High Volumes, Monday's at 1:00pm) Direct Link to Show
High Volumes Blog: highvolumes.wordpress.com
February 12, 2010 - Something Worth Loving for Valentine's Day
Tony Hoagland came to Emerson yesterday and I completely geeked out. I think I said his poetry was like pizza - because you can have it anytime day or night and you just can't get enough of it. Seriously? I was all aflutter getting him to sign my Ploughshares like a huge poetgeek. Miraculously, Tony was as lovely to me as he was to every other fawning fan; he even asked me what I was reading. In fact, he asked me to tell him about a poet I'd discovered that he didn't know about. ACK! Mind erases.
I told him I had been reading Janusz Szuber. I'm diggin Mr. Szuber right now. I'd say worth a look. Translated by the wife of a prof here at Emerson, Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough. As Tony responded to my recommendation, "the Poles just have something" when it comes to poetry. Well, I've definitely got the love of vodka and a good gołąbki, so please let's hope the Polish poetry gene is in there for me, too.
What I should have said was that I am loving
Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Her book, At the Drive-in Volcano, came out in 2007 and there's some really lovely work there.
Anyway, back to the great American hero, heir of Whitman, the man himself. Tony's reading was just luminous. He read "Hard Rain," "Dialectical Materialism," "Hinge" (which gave me shivers) and a bunch of others. He ended with a poem from the Ploughshares he edited by Alicia Jo Rabins, "How You Came To Be." Lucky Alicia! And a great way to end the night.
January 20, 2010
Matthew Dickman is getting a lot of love right now, deservedly. His first book, All-American Poem, was winner of the 2008 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize in Poetry, published by American Poetry Review and distributed by Copper Canyon Press. Whether you love poetry or not, this guy is saying some interesting and important stuff; it's grounded yet soaring, perfectly sarcastic and raunchy, wonderfully imaginative. While it may do the same type of thing over again, I couldn't put it down. Official poetry crush.
An excerpt from "Lents District":
Dear 82nd avenue, dear 92nd and Foster,
I am your strange son,
you saved me when I needed saving
and I remember your arms wrapped around
my bassinet like patrol cars wrapped around
the school yard
the night Jason went crazy—
waving his father’s gun above his head,
bathed in red and blue flashing lights,
all American, broken in half and beautiful.
May 2, 2010
I will be on cyber radio today! The lovely and talented Joelle Jameson invited me to co-host her show, "High Volumes." We did an hour-long segment on place and location---listen live today at 1:00pm to hear us reading our favorite poems from all over the world, and some of our own stuff as well. This show will be archived on May 9th, so if you miss it today, you can always listen to it for about a month after this. Show: cyberstationusa.com (click on High Volumes, Monday's at 1:00pm) Direct Link to Show
High Volumes Blog: highvolumes.wordpress.com
February 12, 2010 - Something Worth Loving for Valentine's Day
Tony Hoagland came to Emerson yesterday and I completely geeked out. I think I said his poetry was like pizza - because you can have it anytime day or night and you just can't get enough of it. Seriously? I was all aflutter getting him to sign my Ploughshares like a huge poetgeek. Miraculously, Tony was as lovely to me as he was to every other fawning fan; he even asked me what I was reading. In fact, he asked me to tell him about a poet I'd discovered that he didn't know about. ACK! Mind erases. I told him I had been reading Janusz Szuber. I'm diggin Mr. Szuber right now. I'd say worth a look. Translated by the wife of a prof here at Emerson, Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough. As Tony responded to my recommendation, "the Poles just have something" when it comes to poetry. Well, I've definitely got the love of vodka and a good gołąbki, so please let's hope the Polish poetry gene is in there for me, too.
What I should have said was that I am loving
Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Her book, At the Drive-in Volcano, came out in 2007 and there's some really lovely work there. Anyway, back to the great American hero, heir of Whitman, the man himself. Tony's reading was just luminous. He read "Hard Rain," "Dialectical Materialism," "Hinge" (which gave me shivers) and a bunch of others. He ended with a poem from the Ploughshares he edited by Alicia Jo Rabins, "How You Came To Be." Lucky Alicia! And a great way to end the night.
January 20, 2010
Matthew Dickman is getting a lot of love right now, deservedly. His first book, All-American Poem, was winner of the 2008 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize in Poetry, published by American Poetry Review and distributed by Copper Canyon Press. Whether you love poetry or not, this guy is saying some interesting and important stuff; it's grounded yet soaring, perfectly sarcastic and raunchy, wonderfully imaginative. While it may do the same type of thing over again, I couldn't put it down. Official poetry crush. An excerpt from "Lents District":
I am your strange son,
you saved me when I needed saving
and I remember your arms wrapped around
my bassinet like patrol cars wrapped around
the school yard
the night Jason went crazy—
waving his father’s gun above his head,
bathed in red and blue flashing lights,
all American, broken in half and beautiful.