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Small college English, ’90s style
I just began a new term with thirty years at W&L in the rearview mirror. I looked up 1994: aside from the leaders and wars I remembered, Wikipedia reminded me that was the year Munch’s The Scream was stolen, Kurt Cobain died, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president, the Chunnel opened, and Pulp Fiction…
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Beginning a hybrid project, anxiously
Anxiety, my medical people agreed about those heart palpitations I mentioned in my last post, then proceeded to treat me with pills, needles, and reminders about breathing techniques. Some combination of those is starting to help, as well as a three-day breather we just took at the beach, a landscape that seems to help me…
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Calendaring, with palpitations
My body never tells me “it’s a full moon,” but I have a strong sense for the wheel of the year. Something shifts in me, an internal reorientation, and I think oh, August 1st, Lughnasadh, Lammas, midpoint between summer solstice and fall equinox. First fruits of the harvest, here we are! Of course, the US…
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Talkin’ poetry, music, & ambition
In her memoir A Freewheelin’ Time, Suze Rotolo emphasizes the young Bob Dylan’s “fever to learn”: making pilgrimages to hear legends, hanging around his peers to pick up their songs and arrangements, occasionally using said arrangements on his own records before said peers got the chance. According to another source, Dylan at least once absconded…
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History’s weather
I confess to being a planner by temperament, but some of the best moments of any trip are serendipity. I’m just back from 2 1/2 weeks in Scotland, where one of my most poetic encounters was turning the corner onto Rose Street in Edinburgh, feeling tired and looking for somewhere to eat, and spotting a…
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Spiral aboveground, mycelium beneath
Sick for much of the last few weeks, I became a literary twister, pulling in a lot of reading and flinging out a few things, too. I’m not in poetry submission mode, except for a couple of residency applications. Instead, I’m occupying the quiet eye of a poetry storm by preparing a book for publication,…
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Revising reality in poetry, sf, & our partisan brains
Mini-interview below with Nat Goldberg and Chris Gavaler on the occasion of their latest publication. Topics range from Star Trek to hybrid poems to literary collaboration to the Church of America. Enjoy! LW: Congratulations on the debut of your great new book Revising Reality: How Sequels, Remakes, Retcons, and Rejects Explain the World. A question that…
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The conference program and underprogram
Gregory Pardlo, paraphrased, from a staged conversation with Allison Joseph: I know I might sound like a hypocrite, but don’t worry about the prizes; there’s so much compromise and chance in the process. Just keep doing your thing and saying yes to opportunities. Conferences have a program and an underprogram. Between events I talk to…
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Cosmic, dystopic, poetic
Spring proceeds peony by heavy-headed peony. With satisfaction and struggle, I’ve mostly finished the editorial part of the season, although we’re now proofing Shenandoah‘s Spring issue. I’ll be off the hook for a while, except for the relatively moderate workload of running the annual Graybeal-Gowen Prize for Virginia Writers, because I’ve now set the poetry…
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So much poetry month
Love poem, lust poem, breakup poem, prayer poem, curse poem, contemplating-mortality-while-looking-at-a-dead-animal poem, nature-sure-is-beautiful poem, nature-sure-is-weird poem, language-is-weird poem, art-inspires-me poem, what’s-the-point-of-poetry poem, I-miss-my-home poem, escape poem, world’s-going-to-hell poem in its environmental and political varieties, people-are-shitty poem, I-have-hope-anyway poem, my-body’s-failing-me poem, struggling-against-despair poem, hey-I’m-not-dead-yet poem, apology poem, not-sorry poem, I-fear-for-my-children poem, grief poem (a category much…
