Maybe Vivisection
This malaise and the fatigue of late summer—how to know its fat underside? I am in a thing. Worse: I …
Favorite Bookish Thing 2016: Lines by Hesiod
In a state of near-misery, I return to reading I did this summer: Dorothea Schmidt Wender’s ’73 translation of Hesiod …
For St. Valentine: JILTED. Sir Thomas Wyatt.
He professeth Indifference Hate whom ye list for I care not; Love whom ye list and spare not; Do what …
Henry Israeli’s “On Every Hand a Great Plain”
The plea at the heart of every act of criticism is a plea for better, less disposable poetry. The more …
Allen Braden’s “Instructions On Being a Sea Creature”
Imprecision greets the reader of this poem at the outset, and never, afterwards, does the piece seem to resolve the miscommunications to which …
For St. Valentine: GREATER THAN LOVE. Robert Hass.
Etymology Her body by the fire Mimicked the light-conferring midnights Of philosophy. Suppose they are dead now. Isn’t “dead now” …
Ada Limón’s “The Rewilding,” or Narcissus at the Woodline
Ada Limón’s poem “The Rewilding” is confusing in an irksome rather than invigorating way, and is unable, finally, to give the …
Kevin Prufer’s “A Plastic Bag Caught in a Tree”
Prufer’s poem traffics, albeit poorly, in many of the conventional ideas that under-gird our poetic moment: —nailed-down meaning is a world abandoned; …
