Ars Poetica #100: I BelieveNo
Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves,
(though Sterling Brown said
“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)
digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other?
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Inaugural Poet
Elizabeth Alexander has been chosen as the "Inaugural Poet" - the poet who gets to read a poem at the inauguration on January 20. Here is one of her poems:
April Reading
I had a few goals at the start of the year: (1) to read more classic novels, (ii) to re-read more books (I used to re-read a lot), (3) to b...
-
The Guardian is publishing a series called 1000 Novels Everyone Should Read . I almost didn't read it; my "to be read" list i...
-
A long time ago, I don't remember the year but it must have been at least thirty-five years ago, I went on a sightseeing trip to Hanniba...
-
I must confess that this is the first David Mitchell novel I’ve ever read and I picked it up, not because it was a David Mitchell novel, but...