Tag: Cancer
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* writing the woods with wislawa szymborska
In the summer course I’m teaching, we have been discussing ideas of writing as performance; that is, what gets going as soon as words are on the page. It’s similar to what William Stafford means when he says, “The moon you are describing is the one you are creating,” which I wrote about in a…
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another bolaño lyrical alignment
Here’s another lyrical alignment from Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives. I came across this paragraph “re-aligned” in some old notes from 2008. The scene is of the enigmatic Ulises character described via another character’s story of him. I often describe Bolaño as a poet’s poet. His writing, like that of Borges, is infused with signs of a…
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* the 200th post: a cento
Well, it had to happen: we’ve reached the 200th post on this blog! To celebrate, I decided to create a cento – a patchwork poem made by selecting lines from other people’s poems to create a singular poem (citing one’s sources, of course) – by going through all the posts published since I started this…
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* sentimentality via mary ruefle & hart crane
I revisited this week’s poem – Hart Crane’s “Chaplinesque” – this summer reading through Mary Ruefle’s “Madness, Rack, & Honey.” In the book, she points to the sentimentality of the poem, how it makes the campy humor of Chaplin and the image of a kitten and raises them to their proper place, which is simply…
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* My Writing Process Blog Tour!
Happy Monday, y’all! I’ve been invited to participate in the My Writing Process: Blog Tour by poet extraordinaire, Lisa Ampleman. Here’s some info on Lisa: Lisa Ampleman is the author of a book of poetry, Full Cry (NFSPS Press, 2013), and a chapbook, I’ve Been Collecting This to Tell You (Kent State University Press, 2012). Her poems have appeared…
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* new chapbook: Corpus Christi Octaves
I am happy to announce that my new chapbook – Corpus Christi Octaves – is officially available from Flutter Press! Purchasing info here. This collection is made up of two elegiac sequences and an interlude. My goal with the two sequences is to honor my friends both for what they meant to me but also for…
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bolaño: a lyrical alignment
I recently reread Robert Bolaño’s novel “The Savage Detectives.” I first read it in 2008. I had just moved to Oregon after completing my MFA, two years in NYC that were a combination of awe and awful. To be a young poet anywhere is to be confused and enchanted – and able to use words…
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* questions with Pablo Neruda & Mary Oliver
XXXIII. And why is the sun such a bad friend to someone walking in the desert? And why is the sun so friendly in the hospital garden? Are these birds or fish here in nets of moonlight? Was it where they lost me that I was able to find myself? Pablo Neruda, from the Book…
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* prose poem buzz & Max Jacob
Poem of the Moon There are upon the night three mushrooms that are the moon. As brusquely as the cuckoo sings from a clock, they rearrange themselves at midnight each month. There are in the garden rare flowers that are small sleeping men, one-hundred of them. They are reflections from a mirror. There is in…
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* Akhmatova & some news on the friday influence
Willow – Anna Akhmatova “And a worn-out cluster of trees.” — Pushkin In the cool nursery of the young century, I was born to a patterned tranquility, The voice of man was not sweet to me, But the wind’s voice I could understand. I loved burdocks and nettles, But the silver willow best…
The Friday Influence 