Tag Archives: poetry

And One More Thing…

Posted on November 17, 2025 by JMN

I adore compression and spareness, and Infinite Jest, finished at 7:29PM on 11-16-25, is bloated and prolix. It tells you something that it’s a novel with footnotes. Hundreds of them. During the periods when I ground my teeth, it tracked … Continue reading →

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Quickness, Sureness, Deep Intelligence

Posted on October 24, 2025 by JMN

Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have. (Denise Levertov) I had the unique experience of being exposed to a poem orally, recited by the poet no less, and of understanding her … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged , | 3 Comments

A Poem Is a Sketch

Posted on October 9, 2025 by JMN

Disconcert. Defamiliarize. Distort. Disrupt. Draw, Stardust! A friend I’ll nickname Stardust, avid prose reader, has remarked that relatively few people have a taste for poetry nowadays. I surmise it’s always been so, even in this or that era when <name-your-Great-Poet> … Continue reading →

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Inwardness, Tenderness, Political Rage

Posted on October 6, 2025 by JMN

***“I hate being called poet/dramatist/translator/director. Poet covers it all for me… I want to do justice to my inwardness, my tenderness, my political rage.” (Tony Harrison)*** ***… como una mosca espía…… like a fly on the wall… [“a spy fly”!](From “Revuelo” … Continue reading →

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Sean Singer and ‘Bird’

Posted on September 29, 2025 by JMN

Often as not a poem gives me a right old drubbing while stealing my lunch money, cackling in cold delight all the while. Instead of picking up my Big Chief tablet, shrugging and slinking back to class, I squeal like … Continue reading →

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Azurea20: ‘Permit Me a Space Wherein to Hang My Voice’

Posted on September 22, 2025 by JMN

“I personally learned my own craft of writing poetry through translating poetry… I think one way to deepen the appreciation of poetry is to approach it through translation.” (Arthur Sze, new U.S. poet laureate) “Señora de las Cosas Errantes” by … Continue reading →

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Samatar Elmi Got There Before Me

Posted on September 19, 2025 by JMN

“We’re planning a way to allow wide swaths of the world to elect representatives to a new governance board… Because if I weren’t in on this I’d be, like, ‘Why do these fuckers get to decide what happens to me?’” … Continue reading →

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Rollicking Chin Wag Introduces ‘Mumble Rap’

Posted on September 11, 2025 by JMN

The New York Times recorded interview with Earl Sweatshirt was a freewheeling romp by a voluble cohort of cognoscenti. High spirits prevailed. The three-way session was suffused with knowing guffaws, spicy vernacular and poignant insider allusion. For the hip-hop-curious outsider … Continue reading →

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This Is Now (Again)

Posted on September 1, 2025 by JMN

“He’s also piercingly smart about his place as a white observer in a Black art form.” (Jayson Greene, on Daniel Levin Becker) Before you-know-who was president, I encountered something called Twitter, ran with it for maybe six weeks. That was … Continue reading →

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‘A Wild and Capacious Art’

Posted on August 3, 2025 by JMN

“Poetry belongs to all who write, read, sing and sign it.” (Adrian Matejka) ”A wild and capacious art” is how Adrian Matejka describes it. The editor of Poetry knows whereof he speaks, though I would hazard that other art forms … Continue reading →

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