A Poetry Daily Prose Feature:
"I stayed up late last night reading the letters of A. R. Ammons, who for years sowed and savored his loneliness in lonely Ithaca. 'Keep Ithaka always in your mind,' wrote Constantin Cavafy, 'Arriving there is what you're destined for.' And he did, Ammons, keep that mythical Ithaka in his mind, which is to say in his poems, decade after decade of diaristic ramblings that are as flavorless as old oatmeal this morning, as null and undifferentiated as deep space—then lit up suddenly by a meteoric masterpiece that must have surprised the workaday writer as much as it does the fatigued reader."—Christian Wiman, from He Held Radical Light
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"For every religious reference, there’s a bum joke..."
Sam Jordison on "how Chaucer weaves high-minded poetry with low comedy." (The Guardian)
TLS poem of the week:
Andrew McCulloch introduces "So Easy, So Hard," by Anthony Thwaite. (The Times Literary Supplement)
"Hey, Necromancer!"
Heidi Sopinka on "finding Leonora Carrington in her home in Mexico City and asking her to be a death guide." (Paris Review Daily)
"Catastrophe overload?"
"Read philosophers and poetry instead of headlines," says Rachel Hadas. (The Conversation)
Bridging "fantasy and reality in modern Caribbean society."
Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting, by Shivanee Ramlochan, reviewed by Sarala Estruch. (The Guardian)
"Feminize Your Canon: Rosario Castellanos"
Emma Garman profiles the "the visionary Mexican feminist, poet, novelist, and essayist. (Paris Review Daily)
"How Poetry Quiets the 'Pandemonium of Blab'"
Christian Wiman's He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art, reviewed by Christie Purifoy. (Christianity Today)
The Guardian poem of the week:
Carol Rumens introduces "The Barber Shop," by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, translated by the poet and Jackie Willcox. (The Guardian)
American Life in Poetry:
Ted Kooser presents "Butterflies," by Samuel Green. (American Life in Poetry)
"On my radar: Tracy K Smith's Cultural Highlights"
The Pulitzer-winning poet on a captivating animation, a powerful opera and a hideaway in Alaska and more. (The Guardian)
"The radical spirit of ’75 is alive and well: the relaunch of Littoral Books"
Janet Mills reports on a new mission for a feminist press of gritty old Portland. (Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel)
"... the story darkens..."
Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume II: 1956–1963, edited by Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil, reviewed by Craig Raine. (The Spectator)
Poetry Sunday:
Rebecca Foust introduces Deborah Garrison's "Goodbye, New York." (Women's Voices for Change)
"On a Line by Proust"
Rita Dove introduces a poem by Adam Giannelli. (The New York Times Magazine)
"Word Weaver"
Denise Sullivan reports on Kim Shuck, San Francisco's poet laureate, who "fights back, one poem, one statue at a time." (San Francisco Examiner)
Keeping the memory of Henry L. Dumas alive:
Helaine Williams talks with Eugene B. Redmond about his work as literary executor for Dumas' estate and editor of his poems and short stories. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette)
Four new books by Canadian poets:
Barb Carey reviews collections by Paul Vermeersch, Katherena Vermette, Dionne Brand, and Chris Bailey. (The Toronto Star)
"... poets from Ireland and poets from farther afield:"
RTÉ Radio resumes broadcasting "The Poetry Programme." (RTÉ)
"The Sharp Force and Disgraceful State of the Modern Aphorism"
"I like the idea of the aphorism as an expression of desire rather than a small machine for defining things..." says Brian Dillon. (The New Yorker)
"Sentiment Without Sentimentality"
A Carnival of Losses:
Notes Nearing Ninety,
by Donald Hall, reviewed by John Wilson. (First Things)
"... from starving in a garret to dining with Edmund Burke..."
The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith, edited by Michael Griffin and David O’Shaughnessy, reviewed by Claire Connolly. (The Irish Times)
"There's no magazine quite like it"
As Boulevard magazine publishes its 100th issue, Don Marsh discusses magazine's evolution with editor-in-chief Jessica Rogen and writers Joyce Carol Oates and Carl Phillips. (St. Louis Public Radio)
Kelly Forsythe, Ada Limón, Katie Ford
New collections reviewed by Elizabeth Lund. (The Washington Post)
"There’s no such thing as a good wedding poem."
Seth Perlow on the problems with finding something for the big day. (The Washington Post)
Recently Arrived Titles
These just in... Highlighted titles may be purchased from Poetry Daily / Amazon.com. A complete
list of all books and journals recently received at Poetry Daily is also available.
- That's What I Thought, Gary Young (Persea Books)
- Robert Graves: From Great War Poet to Good-Bye to All That, 1895-1929, Jean Moorcroft Wilson (Bloomsbury Publishing)
- Comfort Measures Only: New and Selected Poems, 1994–2016, Rafael Campo (Duke University Press)
- Windy Day at Kabekona: New & Selected Prose Poems, Thomas R. Smith (White Pine Press)
- Suspension, Paige Riehl (Terrapin Books)
- Abandoned Poems, Stanley Moss (Seven Stories Press)
- Robert Hayden in Verse (New Histories of African American Poetry and the Black Arts Era), Derik Smith (University of Michigan Press)
- Isako Isako, Mia Ayumi Malhotra (Alice James Books)
- Said Through Glass, Jona Colson (Washington Writers' Publishing House)
- A Portrait of the Self as Nation: New and Selected Poems, Marilyn Chin (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.)
- No Brother This Storm, Jack B. Bedell (Mercer University Press)
- Reason's Dream, Roger Mitchell (Dos Madres Press)
- Outside/Inside: Just outside the art world’s inside, Martha King (BlazeVOX [books])
Past Features:
Original
articles, interviews, selections from special collections and journal issues, and more are available in the Archives.
