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5 Great Stories on the Lives of Poets

Sylvia Plath. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

“If I knew where poems came from, I’d go there.” —Michael Longley

Below are some of my favorite #longreads that fall under the umbrella of “the lives of the poets.” Each is paired with a favorite poem by the poet in question. Quite a few of these stories are personal, not just about the poet, but about the authors of the pieces themselves. Which is unsurprising, especially because, as Billy Collins put it in a 2001 Globe and Mail piece: “You don’t read poetry to find out about the poet, you read poetry to find out about yourself.”

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1. ‘River of Berman,’ by Thomas Beller (Tablet Magazine, Dec. 13, 2012)

David Berman is perhaps best known for his work with the indie-rock band Silver Jews, but his poetry is a thing to behold, as accessible as it is awesome (in the true sense of the word). Beller’s piece, a “tribute to the free-associating genius of the Silver Jews,” delves not just into the beauty of Berman’s free-association, but also his Judaism, his place in the New York literary scene of the 1990s, and his public pain.

Poem: “Self Portrait at 28” by David Berman

2. ‘The Long Goodbye,’ by Ben Ehrenreich (Poetry Magazine, Jan. 2008)

The details of poet Frank Stanford’s life are as labyrinth-like as his most famous work, an epic poem titled, “The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You.” His life was in many ways a series of contradictions: his childhood was divided between the privilege of an upper-crust Memphis family and summers deep in the Mississippi Delta; he was a backwoods outsider who maintained correspondence with poets ranging from Thomas Lux to Allen Ginsberg; and posthumously, he is both little-known and a cult figure in American letters. In seeking to unravel the man behind the myth, Ehrenreich heads deep into the lost roads of Arkansas: the result is a haunting and vivid portrait of both Stanford’s life and his own quest.

Poem: “The Truth” by Frank Stanford

3. ‘Zen Master: Gary Snyder and the Art of Life,’ by Dana Goodyear (New Yorker, Oct. 20, 2008)

Dana Goodyear’s profile of Gary Snyder provides a rich rendering of the Beat poet, Buddhist, and California mountain man.

Poem: “Night Song of the Los Angeles Basin” by Gary Snyder

4. ‘On Sylvia Plath,’ by Elizabeth Hardwick (New York Review of Books, Aug. 12, 1971)

It is likely that if you have made it this far down the list you already know a fair amount about Sylvia Plath, but what makes this piece interesting is Elizabeth Hardwick’s take on her, and her lovely, clear-eyed prose. Hardwick, who co-founded the New York Review of Books, was herself no stranger to the lives of poets, having spent 23 years married to Robert Lowell. It is also—maybe—of interest that the same girls who fall mercilessly hard for Plath at 16 and 21 and often discover Hardwick with a similar fervor a few years down the road (myself included).

Poem: “Cut” by Sylvia Plath

5. ‘Robert Lowell’s Lightness,’ by Diantha Parker (Poetry Magazine, Nov. 2010)

Widely considered one of the most important 20th century American poets, Lowell’s biographer called him “the poet-historian of our time.” Parker’s piece examines a much more personal history, that of Lowell’s relationship with her father, painter Frank Parker.

Poem: “History” by Robert Lowell

Africa is changing—but when it comes to conflict, the battles are smaller, messier and not necessarily driven by a specific purpose:

This is the story of conflict in Africa these days. What we are seeing is the decline of the classic wars by freedom fighters and the proliferation of something else—something wilder, messier, more predatory, and harder to define. The style of warfare has shifted dramatically since the liberation wars of the 1960s and 1970s (Zimbabwe, Guinea-Bissau), the cold-war wars of the 1980s (Angola, Mozambique), and the large-scale killings of the 1990s (Somalia, Congo, Rwanda, Liberia). Today the continent is plagued by countless nasty little wars, which in many ways aren’t really wars at all. There are no front lines, no battlefields, no clear conflict zones, and no distinctions between combatants and civilians, which is why the kind of massacre that happened near Niangara is sadly common.

“Africa’s Dirty Wars.” — Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Review of Books

See also: “Anatomy of an Afghan War Tragedy.” — David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2011

On the 1988 presidential campaign:

Among those who traveled regularly with the campaigns, in other words, it was taken for granted that these “events” they were covering, and on which they were in fact filing, were not merely meaningless but deliberately so: occasions on which film could be shot and no mistakes made (“They hope he won’t make any big mistakes,” the NBC correspondent covering George Bush kept saying the evening of the September 25 debate at Wake Forest University, and, an hour and a half later, “He didn’t make any big mistakes”), events designed only to provide settings for those unpaid television spots which in this case were appearing, even as we spoke, on the local news in California’s three major media markets. “On the fishing trip, there was no way for television crews to get videotapes out,” the Los Angeles Times noted a few weeks later in a piece about how “poorly designed and executed” events had interfered with coverage of a Bush campaign “environmental” swing through the Pacific Northwest. “At the lumber mill, Bush’s advance team arranged camera angles so poorly that in one set-up only his legs could get on camera.” A Bush adviser had been quoted: “There is no reason for camera angles not being provided for. We’re going to sit down and talk about these things at length.”

“Insider Baseball.” — Joan Didion, The New York Review of Books, October 1988

See more #longreads from Joan Didion

Photo: cliff1066/Flickr

Grantland's Jay Caspian Kang: My Top 5 Longreads of 2011

Jay Caspian Kang (pictured above) is an editor at Grantland. His work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine and The Morning News. His first novel, The Dead Do Not Improve, will be published by Hogarth/Random House in August 2012.

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David Hill: “$100 Hand of Blackjack, Foxwoods Casino” (McSweeney’s)

This is the sort of piece you want to compare to other writers like Didion or Carver or even James Baldwin, but you hold off because you don’t want to piss off the author by getting it wrong. Yes, there’s a bit of Didion’s calmness here, a bit of Carver’s bleariness, and a bit of Baldwin’s honesty-at-all-costs, but David Hill’s prose sings with a melancholy that’s truly original. The one piece from 2011 that had me punching the wall with jealousy. By far my favorite read of the year.

Mike Kessler: “What Happened to Mitrice Richardson?” (Los Angeles magazine)

Great crime writing. Thoroughly reported and well constructed.

Alma Guillermoprieto: “In the New Gangland of El Salvador” (New York Review of Books)

My thoughts on Guillermoprieto can be found here.

Francisco Goldman: “The Wave” (The New Yorker, sub. required)

This is gut-wrenching. Goldman’s novel, Say Her Name, is somehow even more powerful.

Jon Ronson: “Robots Say the Damnedest Things” (GQ)

When this very funny piece about robots is over, you start thinking a bit differently about love. I don’t know how Jon Ronson achieved that effect, but “Robots Say the Damnedest Things,” was my most fun read of 2011.

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Share your own Top 5 Longreads of 2011, all through December. Just tag it #longreads on Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook. 

5280 Magazine's Geoff Van Dyke: My Top 5 Longreads of 2011

Geoff Van Dyke is deputy editor of 5280 Magazine in Denver. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Outside, and Men’s Journal.

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• “The Food at our Feet,” by Jane Kramer, The New Yorker

Kramer can almost make you smell and taste the stuff she’s picking: mint, asparagus, fennel, mushrooms. Plus, maybe my favorite lead sentence of the year: “I spent the summer foraging, like an early hominid with clothes.”

• “The Kill Team,” by Mark Boal, Rolling Stone

The disturbing investigation into an Army unit in Afghanistan that was killing civilians for sport.

• “Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts,” by Jonathan Franzen, New York Times

I kind of didn’t want to like this piece, but Franzen’s assessment of “consumer technology products,” and our fraught relationships with them, feels right on.

• “The Day that Damned the Dodgers,” by Lee Jenkins, Sports Illustrated

As a lifelong San Francisco Giants fan, it was heartbreaking to read this chronicle of how the Giants’ greatest rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, have gone from one of the most respected organizations in sports to one of the most dysfunctional.

“What Really Happened to Strauss-Kahn?” by Edward Jay Epstein, The New York Review of Books

A fascinating investigation that suggests Dominique Strauss-Kahn was set up, perhaps even by people associated with French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

BONUS

Pretty much anything by Charles P. Pierce at Grantland, but especially his piece on the beginning of the end of NCAA sports and his unflinching essay on Jerry Sandusky and Penn State.

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See more lists from our Top 5 Longreads of 2011 >

Share your own Top 5 Longreads of 2011, all through December. Just tag it #longreads on Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook.