…about what the sense of being lost in life –useless — feels like. (And, by the way, it's not all bad.) Here's what I mean, from "Li Po" by Martha Ronk: There is the watery, uneasy feeling, that one has been there before, has encountered that reservoir of emotion, some other year, under one's fingertipsContinue reading “Only in poetry can we really talk…”
Category Archives: poets and poetry
Again Falls This Quiet Persistent Rain…
According to the National Weather Service, this huge storm that hit California last night was the biggest precip to reach the state at this time of year in forty years (sorry, I can't reference that, because I can't find/remember where I read it). Hit central CA harder than us in SoCal, but boy was itContinue reading “Again Falls This Quiet Persistent Rain…”
Meteorology — It’s So Not about You
Robert Peake, Ojai's most distinguished poet this century, thinks deeply and writes beautifully about topics that only poetry has the means to bring down to earth. Over the summer I happened to see him read the following, which may be of particular interest to the readers of this site, because this poem dares to suggestContinue reading “Meteorology — It’s So Not about You”
Withholding Is What Gives Telling Its Power
From a wonderfully wandering essay by Ange Milko in last month's issue of Poetry, on motherhood, Pinocchio, nature, and much much more, this central truth: Over the last half-century, poetry and memoir have served the function of self-expression, and self-expression is justified as a necessary truth-telling. “Identity” poetry has even claimed the moral high ground,Continue reading “Withholding Is What Gives Telling Its Power”
Don’t Waste Your Dreams — Recycle Them
Rebecca Solnit, one of today's great thinkers, wrote recently in her book A Field Guide to Getting Lost: It is in the nature of things to be lost and not otherwise. Think of how little has been salvaged from the compost of time of the hundreds of billions of dreams dreamt since the language toContinue reading “Don’t Waste Your Dreams — Recycle Them”
What You Ruin Ruins You
The post title is an ominous line from those of us aware that we are in a relationship with the natural world. (Sez me.) The line comes from a poem by Liz Waldener, soon to be seen in The New Yorker. By the evidence of Semblance: Screens, her appearance is well deserved. Here's the poem,Continue reading “What You Ruin Ruins You”
In the Footsteps of Mary Oliver
In The New York Times, Mary Duenwald visits the woods near Provincetown, on the afar tip of Cape Cod. This is a land the poet Mary Oliver has made her own, with her soft, limpid, inviting poems. Duenwald almost literally follows in the footsteps of Oliver, just as Oliver herself once followed in the footstepsContinue reading “In the Footsteps of Mary Oliver”
A Way to Live Through Time (what is poetry)
The summer issue of Poetry is truly spectacular, including many of the greatest American poets alive today (Hoagland, Hirschfield, Merwin) and some startling newcomers (including my former Antioch/MFA classmate Vanessa Place). But best of all may be an autobiography in poem, by John Koethe, which is not only unforgettable, but includes a simply great definitionContinue reading “A Way to Live Through Time (what is poetry)”
The Writer vs. the Artist
One of Tennessee Williams' most accomplished (and least appreciated) plays is the last one he wrote, Vieux Carre. It's worth reading just to experience Williams characterize himself as a young man, living in New Orleans, encountering the human wrecks he would glorify in his immortal Streetcar. A month or so ago Hilton Als of TheContinue reading “The Writer vs. the Artist”
The Inexplicable Rightness of Good Poetry
How does Rae Armantrout write so eloquently without (exactly) making sense? Sky god girl. Pick out the one that doesn’t belong. From a longer poem called Advent, in this month's Poetry. All great art has a mysteriousness, an inexplicable rightness, at which we can only marvel…
Kit Stolz 