Tag: Leo
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* leaving with cavafy
One Night – C. P. Cavafy The room was cheap and sordid, hidden above the suspect taverna. From the window you could see the alley, dirty and narrow. From below came the voices of workmen playing cards, enjoying themselves. And there on that common, humble bed I had love’s body, had those intoxicating lips, red…
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* a meditation on brevity with paz, ritsos, & carruth
Writing – Octavio Paz I draw these letters as the day draws its images and blows over them and does not return It’s suiting to begin this meditation on brevity with Paz who once said that he admired the short lyric for being the hardest kind of poem to write. Anyone who’s worked out…
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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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* stitching along with valerie wallace
I came across this week’s poem – “Winged” by Valerie Wallace – reading through the latest issue of Rust + Moth. I was taken in by the Auden reference to the “old masters” from his poem Musee des Beaux Arts. I find the reference suiting since the impetus for Wallace’s poem comes from Alexander McQueen, whom…
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* beyond mockery with philip larkin
Shared some of Philip Larkin’s work with students this week. I see him as a good example of playing content rebelliously while within formal structures. In the poem below, one can see what I mean in these lines about the moon: Lozenge of love! Medallion of art! O wolves of memory! Immensements! There’s something beyond…
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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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* finding work with Rhina P. Espaillat
Last week I had the honor of participating in CantoMundo, a three-day retreat that develops, sustains, and supports a diverse community of Latina/o poets. Being an introvert, I was a bit apprehensive of jumping into such a social gathering, my main concern being: What if they don’t like me? (I’m surprised by how much one…
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borges: a lyrical alignment
This past week, I found myself reading the essay “Verbiage for Poems” by Jorge Luis Borges (found in On Writing, Penguin Classics), and coming across a marvelous paragraph – emphasis on the ‘marvel,’ something of strange weather patterns moving across the sky in the middle of an ordinary afternoon about this paragraph. In my enthusiasm, I found…
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* two years of the influence
The two year anniversary of the Influence is here and I must admit: it snuck up on me. I had all these great ideas about what to do (party hats! balloons! poems recited inside of a cake!), but then life kinda kept happening. As life happened, so did the Influence, though, which is the goal…
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* organizing the world with Donald Justice
This week’s poem “Bus Stop” by Donald Justice rounds out the recent syllabic kick on the Influence. I recently read an illuminating essay by Justice where he breaks down some of the thinking that went into the poem, both the conceptual thinking and the structural. He describes walking his dog around his neighborhood in California…
The Friday Influence 