Tag: poetry reading
Post-poetry-reading rituals (AWP Prep Pt. 2)
When people talk about writing rituals, they usually mean the behaviors that get them primed for focused composition. For me, that’s a pot of tea and a laptop in a quiet corner, with email notifications turned off. If I still can’t get my head… Continue Reading “Post-poetry-reading rituals (AWP Prep Pt. 2)”
Literary Lexington in the 1920s
“First came Vachel Lindsay and gave a ‘reading’ (if you could call it that) of his poem in the Washington and Lee Library. One of them sounded to me like a hog calling. Then came Carl Sandburg whom I liked much better.” This is… Continue Reading “Literary Lexington in the 1920s”
High school, the best poetry audience ever
One way to tell the story of how I came to read poetry desperately and constantly would be: early. I still know by heart a book of nursery rhymes I used to own, with Richard Scarry illustrations. A lot of us, though, had our… Continue Reading “High school, the best poetry audience ever”
“Douchebag” and other rude, not-seasonally-festive epithets
The one time I tried to smoke a cigarette, my friends mocked me: “Cut that out. You look totally ridiculous.” By common consensus, I couldn’t pull off foul language either. I thought the problem might have been some crisp Englishness lingering in my elocution—my… Continue Reading ““Douchebag” and other rude, not-seasonally-festive epithets”
Poems and chapels
When Alice Te Punga Somerville walked out of Lee Chapel a week ago Sunday, she looked around for water and ended up rinsing her fingers in a puddle, flicking the water back over her head. “Don’t want to take anybody with me,” she remarked.… Continue Reading “Poems and chapels”
Travel dictionaries
That’s how it goes some days, don’t you reckon. You wander the streets of a city that’s no longer your own. You look at a map and all the words are in German. You ask a stranger… Continue Reading “Travel dictionaries”
Writers’ notebooks
I returned to Wellington yesterday from Auckland where, during the wonderful “Poetry Off the Page” course she co-teaches with Helen Sword, Michele Leggott presented me with a Tapa Notebook. This practice is a part of an ongoing nzepc project: visiting writers are presented with… Continue Reading “Writers’ notebooks”
Myself the only kangaroo among the beauty
Researching poetic networks is making me feel anomalous. Partly this is just the familiar unfamiliarity of living in a different country, where every friendship is new and you’re never quite sure whether you understand people or they understand you. Some of my disorientation is… Continue Reading “Myself the only kangaroo among the beauty”
