Posted in Essays on Poetry on 26 August 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I originally ran across David Wojahn’s poem My Father’s Pornography while searching randomly on the Web for some of his poetry. I was drawn into the poem, not so much by the title but by the narrator’s questions in the poem about the writing, as if he is inviting us into the process of its making. Where should I begin this poem, what should I include, how am I meant to tell it?
Posted in Essays on Poetry on 24 August 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Years ago my brother asked for a painting of Don Quixote. Above is one I made based on the painting by Pablo Picasso. My brother wanted the painting because he saw in this knight titling at windmills a touch of his own devotion to lost causes. I’m thinking now about what I wrote my brother in my letter about Don Quixote after I first began reading this novel.
Posted in Poem of the day on 20 August 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Poet
She is working now, in a room
not unlike this one,
the one where I write, or you read.
(more…)
Posted in Poem of the day on 16 August 2008 | Leave a Comment »
How bitter and sweet the sound
Of the single gold and black insect repeating
Its two lonely notes. The insect’s song both magnifies
The field and casts a shadow over it, the way
Posted in Poem of the day on 13 August 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A child said it, and it seemed true:
“Things that are lost are all equal.”
But it isn’t true, if I lost you,
(more…)
Posted in Poem of the day on 12 August 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Red Poppy
The great thing
is not having
a mind. Feelings:
oh, I have those; they
govern me. (more…)
Posted in Poem of the day on 11 August 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Suitor
We lie back to back. Curtains
lift and fall,
like the chest of someone sleeping.
(more…)
Posted in Daily Reading on 1 August 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The following two excerpts are from The Sighted Singer, a book of conversations between Allen Grossman and Mark Halliday on poetry. These passages address part of Grossman’s answer to Halliday’s question, “What is poetry for?” In brief, he said it is partly poetry’s function to make people feel less invisible in the world.
