10 Acts: Ought Art Be Self-Expressive?
— Self conforms to One’s own. Lacan’s minions would sputter: Cell of. I. Mine. Excavation. Troves of veins. A quelled …
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What is a Public Apology?
Insofar as contrition is an act involving an injurer-agent and a being injured—insofar as it recognizes that wrongs are particular …
Four Questions of Value
It happens that modes of thinking completely alien to art-making—‘business’ and ‘professionalism’—are gaining ever-increasing purchase in literary magazines. While it …
Working through Ted Hughes’ “February 17th”
A lamb could not get born. Ice wind Out of a downpour dishclout sunrise. The mother Lay on the mudded …
Meeting Nelly Sachs
Walking the various neighborhoods of Seattle two years ago, I discovered Open Books, a marvelous little dragon’s cave of all-poetry. First thing …
Misunderstanding Poetry
I took the AP Literature examination near the end of my junior year in high school. From what I recall, …
Some Game-Poem Aesthetics
Recumbent, bent over my lower back, coffee of the weakest sort made with the last beans. Sunday. And now, editing, …
Money & Mouths
Our good friends at Berfrois have quite a lively Twitter feed, and it’s there we chanced to meet Will Self’s recent …
‘Kitsch Omega’ and the Queer Aesthetic
In his seminal “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” (if you haven’t read it, head [here] right away), art historian and critic Clement …
An Open Letter to Billy Collins
Mr. Billy Collins: I leave off the ‘Dear’ salutation as a petty violence; could I force you into a corner, …
Yezzi’s Bitter Fool
When did our pleasures become so wan and modest, and so breezily proffered? David Yezzi’s article appeared in the New …
Postscript: My Seamus Heaney
Several weeks before Seamus Heaney’s death, I made a visit to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry to see …
My Seamus Heaney
The artist’s mind is in tune with the abyss, lost in ambition, ever driving deeper—wrestling with noises and the spectra …
My Seamus Heaney
This time last year, I heard Seamus Heaney read from his oeuvre at London’s Southbank Centre. After that hour, I …
My Seamus Heaney
Up, black, striped and demasked like the chasuble At a funeral mass, the skunk’s tail Paraded the skunk. Night after …
Seamus Minen
Mine is sapling-young. Mine is sourced from the gravity of others—indirect as the sun from car window to concrete. I …
My Seamus Heaney
[In honor of Seamus Heaney (1939-2013), SHARKPACK offers short reflections on our favorite passages by the Irishman. —Ed.] When all the others …
Organon Next: ‘The Quickest Sand’
This question stemmed from a tweet by Boston’s Spece: “Politics, confessionalism, identity poetics—refuse. Literary merit. That is all. #iupampo #w00t” Celebratory …
A Short Organon: ‘Poetic Integrity’
I was asked by Denver’s Westerlind (via e-mail) about my thoughts on ‘poetic integrity.’ At once I felt a real clarity and …
“Immeasurable Goals”
In the writings of Italo Calvino we find the following: Overambitious projects may be objectionable in many fields, but not …
