How classicist Emily Wilson cut through centuries of literary tradition to produce a fresh verse epic.
poetry
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quotes, Uncategorized
Searching for Poet Frank Stanford
Traveling to Arkansas to search for mythic poet Frank Stanford.
Posted inNonfiction, Unapologetic Women
Eileen Myles: There’s No Escaping History
The poet and one-time presidential candidate isn’t the least bit surprised by the state of our union.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
Why the Most Beautiful Poems Defy Understanding
“In a poem, we feel what is there, but also what is not.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
What My Father’s Death Taught Me about Poetry
Matthew Zapruder examines his relationship with poetry and with his father. Despite being two men with great facility for precise language, they were unable to use it to bridge the distance between them. In likening poems to people, Zapruder posits that the most beautiful thing about the poems most important to him is that their […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Poems: Protection From Isolation and Solitary Confinement
What we all need now? Poetry, sweet poetry.
Posted inEditor's Pick
My Hundred
Beth Ann Fennelly suggests that to fully embrace the beauty of poetry, one must memorize it. Once committed to memory — a process that gets easier with practice — a poem forever becomes prophylactic against stressful days and lonely times: “We’ve all known solitary confinement. We’ve all inhabited isolation rooms. But the poems we know […]
Posted inBlog Post, Reading List
Tracy K. Smith, Poet Laureate for a Nation Divided
The Librarian of Congress hailed Smith as a “poet of searching.”
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes, Writing
At McSorley’s: Unsorted Regulars, Misfits, Liars, Heroes, and Psychos
Rafe Bartholomew discovers his father’s voice in the very place he thought was holding him back, McSorley’s Old Ale House
Posted inEditor's Pick
The McSorley Poet
Rafe Bartholomew tells the story of his father — Geoffrey Bartholomew — who felt that his addiction to alcohol and his bartending job at famed McSorley’s in New York City had prevented him from achieving the dream of becoming a writer. Bartholomew quit the booze, but not the bar and wrote a self-published manuscript of […]