Tag Archives: reading

Ann Lauterbach’s ‘Blue Door’: It’s Open

THE BLUE DOOR(Ann Lauterbach, Poetry March 2023) The obligatory cancels its strophe. Let me get a grip,and begin in this other patch where the air is. “I caught a whiff of poem on the wind straightaway, which is an exceedingly … Continue reading

Posted in Anthology | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Pausing With Your Eyes

I’ve looked into what the exaggerated gaps between words or phrases in lines of verse are all about, curious whether or not they should affect my reading and, if so, how. A writer named Emilia Phillips calls them visual caesuras … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Ann Lauterbach’s ‘Door’: Trouble Me, Poet

A noun or pronoun, with a participle in agreement, may be put in the ablative to define the time or circumstances of an action. This construction is called the Ablative Absolute… The Ablative Absolute is an adverbial modifier of the … Continue reading

Posted in Anthology, Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Arabic Poetry Note: A. J. Arberry (1905-1969)

Given the exiguous outbound appeal I muster, I work hard at not being longwinded. I revel, though, in venting puffs of comment on my adventure with Arabic and its poetry. A.J. Arberry’s essential anthology of 31 poets spans a period … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Trigger Me, Poet

Poetry March 2023 has arrived in my box. Jenny George powers the issue to a strong start with a poem whose title, unusually, helps read it. Here are the first 4 of its 11 lines: A snake lies in the … Continue reading

Posted in Anthology | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

To Be or Not to Be That, Is the Question

You’ve been punctuated! In my title, moving the pause (caesura) signaled by a comma turns Hamlet’s proposition into something different. Whatever “that” may be, being it or not being it is what’s now in play. The New York Times publishes … Continue reading

Posted in Anthology | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Can This Be Poetry? It’s Direct, Clever and Fun!

Poetry, February 2023, celebrates William J. Harris (still living). Reading the issue’s portfolio of Harris’s poems gave me some laugh-out-loud moments. Here are two (in full): On Wearing EarsAs long as peoplecontinue to wearearsthere won’tbe muchpeace and quietin this world. … Continue reading

Posted in Anthology | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Verse from Two Directions

“I tire of being made to feel smart rather than pleased.”(Peter Schjeldahl) 1. Online One finds lineated speech flowing freely, touching on themes of love, nostalgia, rage, nature, disillusionment, mortality and healing. There’s earnestness, the odd hard edge, whiffs of … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

(Not) Learning to Read

The most important thing schools can do is teach children how to read. If you can read, you can learn anything. If you can’t, almost everything in school is difficult. Word problems. Test directions. Biology homework. Everything comes back to … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

‘The Reader Effect’

… Like a scene from Mr. Rushdie’s novel “Shalimar the Clown,” a knife-wielding man rushed onto the stage and began to stab him. Immediately audience members ran to the stage to defend him. It was a remarkable response. That rush … Continue reading

Posted in Quotations | Tagged , , | Leave a comment