mistaken evaluation

It’s impossible for most poets to recognize that they’ve written something of little worth.

thoughtful poem

One of those I-think-this-I-think-that poems.

alive like that

Model for a poem: A late summer field full of weeds and wildflowers, visited by butterflies and birds.

is island

A poem is a language island.

perceptible disappearnances

It is poetry that remarks on the barely perceptible disappearances from our world such as that of the sleeping porch or the root cellar. And poetry that notes the barely perceptible appearances.

[…]

Poets should exceed themselves—when demands on us are slack, we should be anything but. Pressing the demands of the word forward is not only relevant but urgent. If our country does not vigorously cultivate poetry, it is either poetry’s ineluctable time to wither or time to make a promise on its own behalf to put out new shoots and insist on a much bigger pot.

—C.D. Wright, from “Collaborating,” The Essential C.D. Wright (Cooper Canyon, 2025), edited by Forrest Gander and Michael Wiegers, 119-120

me and me again

Another self-documentarian poet.

poetic power

There are poets who contained their powers, and poets who were overwhelmed by them.

face forward

A poet who wore the language mask.

he was like that

A poet who broke the rules over his knees and then chewed them with his teeth.

ends here

It’s okay to stomp on a poem to make it stop.

lonely pleasure

Often have I sighed to measure
By myself a lonely pleasure,
Sighed to think I read a book
Only read, perhaps, by me.

—William Wordsworth, “To the Small Celandine (Common Pilewort); To the Same Flower,” The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, p.338

then you're in it

Best if the scene is being set without the least sound of the backdrop coming down.

afterimages

One measurement of a poem is how much memory residue it leaves behind.

word well

For a poet, each word is a well: dark, deep, full of echoes, and the faint reflection of water.

algebraic lyric

The lyric poem as an expression, an equation or an inequation (borrowing terms from algebra). As an expression, the lyric poem is a gesture, a stance, an outcry, without any particular shape or resolution. As an equation, the lyric becomes fully formed, taking shape and resolving itself. As inequation, the lyric grasps about but finds no shape or resolution in its utterance.

self-reported

As poets and artists we tend to self-report our successes and breakthroughs.

always be closing

At poetry readings, I’ve seen poets who can’t even sell a few copies after having read from their book(s). This should be a cause for concern. You should be able to close the deal in the room.

quill of smoke

           The rooftop
With a quill of smoke stuck in it
Wavers against the sky
In the dreamy heat of summer.

—Norman MacCaig, from "July Evening," The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon, 2011), edited by Ewen MacCaig

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