Here’s a poem fragment that merits reflection on a spring Sunday. It’s Franz Wright, reflecting on his baptism That insane asshole is dead I drowned him and he’s not coming back. I’m trying to write more like him—spare and contemplative (…)
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Here is the moment in history as the poet sees it: “Someone is trying to make music somewhere,” and today, with the inauguration of President Obama and all it signifies, that someone stands (with the rest of us who hope and struggle) “on the brink” of success in that endeavor. That “someone” struggling to “make music… with a pair of woodnen spoons on an oil drum” (which is really all of us) can now launch into a rich and melodious praise song. That, in a poetic nutshell, is what this moment in time is.
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Seeing the text of the poem Elizabeth Alexander read at today’s inauguration ceremony, I was shocked by its brevity. Watching it on TV, I estimated it at four pages of verse. Given the regular 12-point single-spaced treatment, it easily fits (…)
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Tonight at a meeting of the Creative House of Lancaster, I’m going to be participating in pecha kucha with a presentation of a poem of mine. It’s a poem that draws extensively from Anthony Burgess’ book A Clockwork Orange, Ludwig (…)
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