Tag Archives: poetry

I relish the tension that exists between certain verb pairs often used as roughly synonymous. This isn’t scientific, but here’s how I think of a couple of common verbs: “Look” describes the action of directing the eye to a focal … Continue reading →

First responders plunge into scenarios that need to be made sense of quickly. I call myself a first responder to poetry, and not a critic, but the poetry I read is published, so at least one other reader more qualified … Continue reading →

The two male scholars urgently want to talk about what’s dealt with in the Kama Sutra that’s not, um, you know, the sex part.  BBC4 moderator Melvyn Bragg presses them, saying the sex part is why the book’s famous in … Continue reading →

Cigar this life and light it with the sun. / Breathe this poem in. (From “Gratification to the survivors of daily damnations” by Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi) The rest of Feranmi’s poem says this: […] Own a spot on a cliff … Continue reading →

I never knew why my uncle, a panhandle Texan, liked to say “the only good thing ever come out of Oklahoma was an empty bus.” He should’ve met Steve Leyva, who comes out of Oklahoma and is a good thing. … Continue reading →

The planet is bursting with verse. A reader of poetry has to be arbitrary to stay afloat. In this post I’ve done something impudent, which is to apply strikeout formatting to text which I think would have been better omitted. … Continue reading →