Poetry Wednesday “Anatomy Lesson” by Jan Heller Levi

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Poets on Poets

Vladimir Khodasevich writing about Marina Tsvetaeva: Poets are not born in a country. Poets are born in childhood. What, then, is Russian about Marina Tsvetaeva? Tsvetaeva understood audial and linguistic work that play such an enormous role in folk song. Folk song is for the most part a litany, joyful or grieving. There is an [...]

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Novels vs. Poems

more from Sarah Maquire’s essay “‘Singing About the Dark Times’: Poetry and Conflict”, this time on the difference between the novel and poetry: But it is only in the past three hundred years, initially in Europe and then later in its colonies, that prose, specifically in the form of the novel, has taken over from [...]

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Bly’s 8 Stages of Translations: Stage 6, paying attention to sound

from Robert Bly’s Eight Stages of Translation       In the next stage, which I call here the sixth, we pay attention to sound. The question of tone has led to this. If we wonder whether the poem’s tone is enthusiastic or melancholic, there is only one thing to do: memorize the poem in its original [langauge] [...]

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April 20 – Shez “Literary Rationalizations”

UPDATE: see revision at The Excuse of Literature תירוצים ספרותיים כְּשֶׁיַּגִּיּעַ יוֹם הַדִּין לָאָבוֹת הָאוֹנְסִים לֹא תַּגִּידוּ אַף מִלָּה סוֹפְסוֹף תֵּשְׁבוּ בְּשֶׁקֶט וְתִתְּנוּ מָקוֹם לְזַוְעוֹת בְּכְיָהּ שֶׁל הַיַּלְדָּה אֲבָל עַד שֶׁיַּגִּיעַ יוֹם הַדִּין תַּמְשִׁיכוּ לִסְתֹּם לי אֶת הַפֶּה וּלְחַיֵּךְ אֵלַי בְּנִימוּס לֹא תַּדְפִּיסוּ אֶת הַשִׁירים שֶׁלִּי בִּמְקוֹמוֹתֵיכֶם וְתַמְשִׁיכוּ עִם תֵּרוּצֵי סִפְרוּת. Literary Rationalizations Shez, translated [...]

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we are never the first of our kind

On today’s Writer’s Almanac I found this wonderful love letter from Vita to Virginia, January 21st, 1926. It’s so easy to believe, as we invent and re-invent love and being lesbian, that we are New In The World. Granted, love may FEEL ever-new, but this speaks to me and for me in an immediate, right [...]

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more on the Plural I from guest poet Carol Burbank

inside I contain multitudes Carol Burbank why don’t we believe Walt Whitman when he proclaims his multitude? we think, he sings himself, all that he assumes I dive in assume, assuming he only sings in one voice but what if he really did (contain multitudes)? what if his collective consciousness wasn’t America, but Walt? what [...]

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Poetry as survival – Rukeyser

I don’t believe that poetry can save the world. I do believe that the forces in us wish to share something of our experiences by turning it into something and giving it to somebody: that is poetry. That is some kind of saving thing, and as far as my life is concerned, poetry has saved [...]

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Thoughts on the Plural I

So I’ve been thinking a lot about what we mean when we say “I,” how that is a convenient, singular screen for something very complex and not at all singular. Is “I” who I am today, who I was yesterday, who I might be? My work self or home self or first date self? My [...]

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Poem a day #14 Getting Dressed for Work

here’s a little lesson in what first drafts can look like. This not-yet-a-poem wanders all around, taking forever to tell a story which will probably be reduced to a few descriptive details when I’m done blithering and ready to really write. Inside every narrative is a lyric waiting to happen, but sometimes digging it out [...]

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