4.29.2013

audience of one

A poet who never attended readings unless he was reading, or the reader was a poet whose favor he wanted.

4.28.2013

sound decision

One who would never sacrifice the right word for the useful sound.

4.26.2013

booster seat

As he recited his various publications, he seemed to sit a little higher in his chair. It was then I imagined him sitting on a stack of books.

4.25.2013

moment of conviction

The first question in poetry at that time was simply the question of honesty, sincerity. The point for me, and I think for Louis [Zukofsky], too, was the attempt to construct a meaning, to construct a method of thought from the imagist technique of poetry, from the imagist intensity of vision. If no one were going to challenge me, I would say “a test of truth.” If I had to back it up I’d say anyway, “a test of sincerity.” That there is a moment, in actual time, when you believe something to be true, and you construct a meaning from those moments of conviction.

—George Oppen, quoted in Robert Hass’s What Light Can Do (Ecco, 2012)

4.24.2013

sentence structure

Despite its effort to undermine, to subvert, even to try to damage the sentence, poetry will find that the sentence is a very resilient and adaptable thing.

4.23.2013

practical concerns

Poet, before you take flight, sew your wings on tight.

4.22.2013

show me your papers

Be ready to inspect the critic’s credentials at the border (before the review).

4.21.2013

not bounded

No matter its first and last line a poem has no beginning or end.

4.20.2013

black box

The critic tries to find the poem’s flight recorder sunk somewhere among its wreckage. Sometimes understanding is a futile pursuit.

4.18.2013

wild draft

Not only a rough draft, but one that was rugged and wild.

4.17.2013

not in the throat

The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say, 'The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.' Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation.

—Federico García Lorca, In Search of Duende (New Directions, 1998), translation by Christopher Maurer.

4.16.2013

yet unbroken

The integral lines that broke just the same.

4.14.2013

weights and measures

Each word weighed and measured upon the scale of the tongue.

4.12.2013

he walks the line

The old verse poet kept iambling along.

4.10.2013

impossible and plain

Poems are the impossibility of plainness rendered in plainest form.

—Susan Howe, "Scare Quotes II," The Midnight (New Directions, 2003)

4.08.2013

poem atop poem

The poem's title was a poem itself.

4.06.2013

center justified

It must be because it appears more like a hymn or a prayer when arrayed that way, that naïve poets center their lines on the page.

4.04.2013

taking refuge in work

After reading a spate of flighty and off-the-top-of-the-head kind of poetry, all I want to do is to read some work. I want to see and feel the workmanship that went into a poem’s making.

4.02.2013

in the muck

Whether send-up, satire, or snark, one has to care too much about contemporary culture to be a postmodernist.

4.01.2013

small bold thing

Sometimes when I read a slight but delightful poem, I think that I wouldn’t have had the confidence to make a poem out of so little.