tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251920882011-12-14T21:54:45.797-05:00Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.comBlogger601100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-65912380523827469092009-05-31T19:07:00.000-04:002009-05-31T19:07:35.593-04:00

How a good idea turned into a great website--Poetry Daily.By Michael ChitwoodPoetry Media ServiceFor Don Selby, a good idea was born with a glance.In 1995, Selby was publishing law books. He had stepped into the office of colleague Diane Boller, and there on the shelf beside a book titled Liability of Corporate Officers and Directors was a very different sort of book, a collection of poems by W.S

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-31211828240249043302009-05-16T19:47:00.000-04:002009-05-16T19:47:16.548-04:00

Paul Muldoon's translation of Irish poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill's latest collection.By Carmine StarninoPoetry Media ServiceThe Fifty Minute Mermaid, by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Tr. by Paul Muldoon. The Gallery Press.Hands up, anyone who knew that the merfolk's language was "pelagic"? I certainly didn't. Much remains unknown about these mythic creatures, and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill's new book can help. A

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-69809644445965079472009-05-13T19:11:00.001-04:002009-05-13T19:16:40.808-04:00

German poet Durs Grünbein offers candid and chilling versions of history.By Helen VendlerPoetry Media ServiceAshes for Breakfast: Selected Poems, by Durs Grünbein. Translated by Michael Hofmann. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16.00Although some poems by Durs Grünbein had been published in journals here and in England, it was not until the appearance of this volume, crisply and colloquially

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-31048604776554670552009-05-06T18:51:00.001-04:002009-05-07T18:52:30.999-04:00

A recollection of poet Howard Nemerov.By Eleanor WilnerPoetry Media ServiceA perennial problem with our poetry is that the journals, understandably, publish primarily the living, and some of our finest poets can easily get mislaid. A few of their poems may turn up in anthologies, but they disappear from the larger world of attention, something which creates at times the illusion that there are

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-44231573858323987632009-05-06T18:46:00.001-04:002009-05-06T18:53:46.841-04:00

Two new memoirs by poets Lavinia Greenlaw and Sarah Manguso.by Carla BlumenkranzPoetry Media ServiceThe Importance of Music to Girls, by Lavinia Greenlaw. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $23.00The Two Kinds of Decay, by Sarah Manguso. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $22.00Few writers are memoirists by profession, and it's hard to imagine what the qualifications might be. A compelling and even awful life

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-53578435998914601792009-05-04T19:26:00.000-04:002009-05-04T19:26:40.671-04:00

After early success, Robert Lowell strove for a new style--and revolutionized American letters.By Adam KirschPoetry Media ServiceEven before Robert Lowell published Life Studies, his masterpiece, in 1959, he was widely regarded as the best American poet of his generation. In his debut volume, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lord Weary's Castle (1946), his combination of relentless rhythmic force and

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-29859773000877382752009-05-03T20:04:00.000-04:002009-05-03T20:04:39.542-04:00

Three newly discovered poems by Langston Hughes have their first known publication in the January 2009 issue of Poetry magazine.By Arnold RampersadPoetry Media ServiceLangston Hughes wrote these simple poems* in 1930, as the Great Depression loomed in America. By the end of 1933, in the depths of the crisis, he had composed some of the harshest political verse ever penned by an American. These

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-72811458104197276902009-05-02T08:21:00.000-04:002009-05-02T08:21:21.601-04:00

A close look at Elizabeth Bishop's poem "The Moose" shows why it took her twenty years to write it.By Toby EckertPoetry Media ServiceElizabeth Bishop claimed that it took her around 20 years to finish her poem "The Moose." Even for a poet as methodical as Bishop, that seems like an unusually long time. Taking up a theme she explored in poems such as "The Fish" and "The Armadillo," "The Moose"

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-15100649044099897152009-04-30T17:39:00.001-04:002009-04-30T17:41:52.120-04:00

A review of Davis McCombs's recent poetry collection.By Jason GurielPoetry Media ServiceDismal Rock, by Davis McCombs. Tupelo Press. $16.95.Younger poets still making a name for themselves, like Davis McCombs, know that they must be clear and compelling and not take up too much of our time--"for time," as August Kleinzahler smartly reminds us in a recent talk, "has vanished with inflated rents

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-40760732654669743152009-04-26T15:26:00.001-04:002009-04-26T16:38:06.228-04:00

Even the avant-garde couldn't resist Helen Adam's ballads.By Ange MlinkoPoetry Media ServiceA Helen Adam Reader, ed. by Kristen Prevallet. National Poetry Foundation. $29.95.The publication of A Helen Adam Reader is of historical interest, feminist interest--and poetic interest. Born in Peeblesshire, Scotland, in 1909, Adam was a teenage poet whose Victorian fairy ballads captivated the British

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-74188874453693960242009-04-24T19:33:00.001-04:002009-04-26T16:38:51.260-04:00

Sarah Hannah's second, and final, poetry collection.By Jason GurielPoetry Media ServiceInflorescence, by Sarah Hannah. Tupelo Press. $16.95.The author of this next book, a one-time nominee for Yale Younger Poet, committed suicide last year. Its poems are about flowers and mental health; they have titles like "Dried Flowers" and "Night Nurse," and brandish sharp lines likeDon't talk to me of Paris

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-81164514984714193892009-04-16T16:49:00.002-04:002009-04-26T16:41:07.852-04:00

Poet Stanley Plumly's book on the legendary John Keats transcends biography.By Eric OrmsbyPoetry Media ServicePosthumous Keats: A Personal Biography, by Stanley Plumly. Norton, $27.95.Poets who die young often have surprisingly lively posthumous careers. John Keats (1795-1821) provides the most celebrated example: Almost immediately after his death in Rome, at the age of 25, he entered the realm

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-73531918756699447662009-04-15T16:20:00.000-04:002009-04-15T16:20:24.920-04:00

Poet Albert Goldbarth discusses his 1950s space paraphernalia collection.By Richard SikenPoetry Media ServiceAlbert Goldbarth is the author of over 20 books of poetry, including, most recently, The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems; his many honors include two National Book Critic Circle awards.Richard Siken: What do you collect?Albert Goldbarth: 1950s outer space stuffs, toy spaceships and

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-53366893619391150742009-04-13T21:00:00.000-04:002009-04-13T21:00:43.018-04:00

New U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan.By Meghan O'RourkePoetry Media ServiceKay Ryan, who has just been named America's new poet laureate, is a miniaturist. She favors compression the way Walt Whitman favored expansion. Like oysters, she has said, her poems take shape around "an aggravation." They are also small (most are only about 20 lines long), rich, and dense. A single one might not always make a

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-84810712402588523422009-04-08T20:03:00.001-04:002009-04-08T20:03:50.357-04:00

The reverent, and irreverent, poetry of Zen priest Philip Whalen.by Travis NicholsPoetry Media ServiceIn his book Zen and the Birds of Appetite (New Directions, 1968), Thomas Merton compares the true Zen artist's mind to a mirror, a reflective surface that does not strive for meaning or poetic beauty. He quotes Zenkei Shibayama:The mirror is thoroughly egoless and mindless. If a flower comes it

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-63175568342883856242009-04-07T21:17:00.000-04:002009-04-07T21:17:49.671-04:00

The delightful verse of new Children's Poet Laureate Mary Ann Hoberman has been a family favorite for decades.By Michael AtkinsonPoetry Media ServiceThe best children's poets look at the subjects most parents are terrified of introducing to their little children--death, for instance--and invite them, gracefully, to dance. Take, for instance, Mary Ann Hoberman's "Mayfly," a rather Williamseque

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-27176022582593517932009-04-05T21:16:00.000-04:002009-04-05T21:16:31.563-04:00

Tips for homeschoolers, and all parents, on inspiring families with verse.By Susan ThomsenPoetry Media ServiceWhen she was a tiny girl, one of Karen Edmisten's daughters took a shine to Emily Dickinson. Edmisten, a freelance writer and homeschooling mom in the Midwest, recently recalled what it was like to hear a poetry-besotted four-year-old reciting the Belle of Amherst:Because I could not stop

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-2481836383613027382009-04-03T20:56:00.000-04:002009-04-03T20:56:55.330-04:00

W.S. Di Piero reminisces.By W.S. Di PieroPoetry Media ServiceON THE PORCHI went to find the poet Hayden Carruth when I was living in Vermont in the mid-seventies and he was running his small farmstead, patching together a living with literary hackwork, haying, tractor repair, barn-building, and any other money-eking enterprise, on a hill outside Johnson about forty miles from me. When I phoned in

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-52021312791982363152009-04-02T19:07:00.000-04:002009-04-02T19:07:42.125-04:00

The rift of war between poets Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov.By Ange MlinkoPoetry Media ServiceOne day in early September 1966, the poet Robert Duncan, then 47, was walking to a streetcar stop in San Francisco when lines of verse began drifting to him out of nowhere. These poems would appear toward the end of what may be Duncan's finest book, Bending the Bow (1968), which was written largely

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-1164646525562494142009-03-31T21:43:00.000-04:002009-03-31T21:44:19.194-04:00

Gilbert Wesley Purdy has been reviewing books and other items on the Internet and in paper venues for several years now. As regards books, he reviews both poetry and topical non-fiction prose. Should the texts be translations from a romance language, and the original texts be available to him, he may also choose to review the quality of the translation.At present, he is a regular reviewer for the

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-69228290520730894052009-03-31T21:34:00.003-04:002009-04-26T16:41:46.517-04:00

With his first book Don't Bump the Glump, Shel Silverstein made the leap from Playboy cartoonist to children's author.by Jesse NathanPoetry Media ServiceDon't Bump the Glump! And Other Fantasies, by Shel Silverstein. HarperCollins, $17.99.In 1956, the young Sheldon Alan Silverstein dropped off a portfolio of about 15 drawings at the offices of an upstart publication called Playboy, then located

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-18240602098316842842009-03-29T18:17:00.002-04:002009-04-26T16:42:31.640-04:00

Richard Kenney's first poetry collection in fifteen years is worth the wait.by D. H. TracyPoetry Media ServiceThe One-Strand River, by Richard Kenney. Alfred A. Knopf. $26.95.Fifteen years have passed since Kenney's last book, and The One-Strand River finds the author having deviated some from his last known trajectory. After The Invention of the Zero (1993), I would have guessed Kenney's poems

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-1158273860613390882009-03-17T14:14:00.000-04:002009-03-17T14:15:10.886-04:00

Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 - July 8, 1822)Poetry:"Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats" (U. Toronto);"Alastor: Or, the Spirit of Solitude" (Bartleby.com);The Complete Poetical Works, Oxford 1914 (The University of Adelaide Library);"Feelings Of A Republican On The Fall Of Bonaparte" (Poem Hunter);"Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation" (Bartleby.com);"Love's Philosophy" (The Bralyn

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-1161976145635631172009-03-17T14:13:00.000-04:002009-03-17T14:13:31.913-04:00

John Keats was born in London, October 29, 1795, in the house of his grandfather, who kept a livery stable at Moorfields. He received his education at Enfield, and in his fifteenth year was apprenticed to a surgeon. Most of his time, however, was devoted to the cultivation of his literary talents, which were early conspicuous. During his apprenticeship, he made and carefully wrote out a literal

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-11099602691321585992009-02-12T19:48:00.000-05:002009-02-12T19:48:29.665-05:00

Matthea Harvey discusses the futuristic imagery of her latest poetry collection.By Jeannine Hall GaileyPoetry Media ServiceMatthea Harvey's latest book, Modern Life, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, is obsessed with devastated worlds and hybrid forms of life. In two extended abecedarian sequences, the "Terror of the Future" and "The Future of Terror," Harvey explores the

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-47115250875819802072009-02-11T19:00:00.001-05:002009-04-26T16:43:02.359-04:00

A reissued translation of late T'ang dynasty poetry unites ancient form and raw emotion.by Eric OrmsbyPoetry Media ServicePoems of the Late T'ang, edited and translated by A.C. Graham. NYRB Classics. $14.95In the year 755 common era, when the T'ang dynasty was shaken by violent rebellion, many of its leading citizens--courtiers as well as poets--took to the roads. The dynasty was weakened but

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-88528799228077569752008-12-05T20:42:00.000-05:002008-12-05T20:43:12.690-05:00

Poet Cate Marvin relentlessly explores passion's pitfalls.by D.H. TracyPoetry Media ServiceFragment of the Head of a Queen, by Cate Marvin. Sarabande Books. $13.95.The world of Fragment is in part one of horses and town criers, a fairy tale setting without the fairy tales. The tales that do exist are fairytale grim, mostly about relationship dysfunction, recrimination, and gluttony for romantic

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-66516571134409816032008-11-07T20:21:00.001-05:002008-12-05T20:44:07.494-05:00

Lawrence Ferlinghetti calls on poets to save the world. by Steve HeiligPoetry Foundation Media ServicesPoetry As Insurgent Art, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. New Directions. $12.95.What is the "use" of poetry? Or, as more than one author has asked, Can Poetry Matter?More than 50 years ago, renowned American poet William Carlos Williams wrote famously that "It is difficult/ to get the news from poems/

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-27465410696310026372008-09-22T17:09:00.001-04:002008-12-05T20:45:06.656-05:00

Were William Stafford's early poems better left unpublished?By Eric OrmsbyPoetry Foundation Media ServicesWhen William Stafford (1914-93) was given the National Book Award for poetry, for his 1962 collection Traveling Through the Dark, the judges said of his poems that "their music knows the value of silence." This seems a dubious tribute. Would a composer be acclaimed for his mastery of rests?

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-65183514818622355142008-08-30T21:24:00.001-04:002008-12-05T20:45:34.434-05:00

A review of Simon Armitage's new translation of the larger--and stranger--than-life Middle English poem, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."By Edward HirshPoetry Foundation Media ServicesSir Gawain and the Green Knight A New Verse Translation. By Simon Armitage. $25.95, W. W. Norton & Company; 12.99, Faber & Faber."Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is one of the eerie, exuberant joys of Middle

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-69990701853724581302008-08-18T19:27:00.001-04:002008-12-05T20:46:01.483-05:00

Fanny Howe's poetry is consciousness without judgment; her objective is "not to conclude, but to discover."By Joel BrouwerPoetry Foundation Media ServicesThe Lyrics, by Fanny Howe. Graywolf Press. $14.00.These six long poems were obviously written on the move; references to walking, traveling, searching, and fleeing appear again and again. The poems themselves roam, too, passing from one set of

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-38279558104682210412008-08-16T20:16:00.001-04:002008-12-05T20:46:35.205-05:00

Laura Kasischke's latest poetry collection, Lilies Without, offers unsettling charms.By Joel BrouwerPoetry Foundation Media ServicesLilies Without, by Laura Kasischke. Ausable Press. $14.00.Not much light penetrates the gloom of Laura Kasischke's bewitching new collection, which conjures a mood of misty portent through the use of deep-image nouns (fire, sea, stone, bone, bird); mythological and

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-160139193387355652008-08-15T19:04:00.001-04:002008-12-05T20:47:26.369-05:00

With recent collections of war poetry in his bag, an ex-soldier returns to Afghanistan.by Nathaniel FickPoetry Foundation Media ServicesThe Baghdad Blues, Sinan Antoon. Harbor Mountain Press, $10.00.The War Works Hard, Dunya Mikhail. trans. by Elizabeth Winslow. New Directions Publishing, $13.95.Here, Bullet, Brian Turner. Alice James Books, $14.95.I first flew into Afghanistan in the autumn of

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-92212545958413812472008-08-14T18:29:00.001-04:002008-12-05T20:48:47.323-05:00

Poets Anne Carson and Charles Wright revise and refresh the usual ways of seeing the world.By Sandra Gilbert and D.H. TracyPoetry Foundation Media ServicesDecreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera, by Anne Carson. Alfred A. Knopf. $24.95.Reviewed by Sandra GilbertAnne Carson has won a formidable array of prizes and is a MacArthur Fellow, but I still remember my first encounter with what I could then only

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-17175914772926041892008-08-12T15:44:00.000-04:002008-08-12T15:44:27.191-04:00

Poets Tess Gallagher and Robin Robertson dive headfirst into mythic flaws, contemporary and classical.By Sandra Gilbert and D. H. TracyPoetry Foundation Media ServicesDear Ghosts, by Tess Gallagher. Graywolf Press. $20.00.Reviewed by Sandra GilbertTess Gallagher has always been an endearing poet, simultaneously meditative and what we call "confessional"--meaning, in her case, that she often

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-84256019740694767392008-08-10T19:04:00.000-04:002008-08-10T19:04:56.908-04:00

Making sense of the crazy eloquence in John Ashbery's Notes From the Air: Selected Later Poems.By Marjorie PerloffPoetry Foundation Media ServicesNotes from the Air: Selected Later Poems, by John Ashbery. Ecco Press. $34.95John Ashbery's 1985 Selected Poems drew on the first thirty years of his career, from 1956's Some Trees to 1985's A Wave. The new Selected spans the twenty years following '85

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-61164184038399431082008-08-08T17:51:00.000-04:002008-08-08T17:51:26.035-04:00

The women in Colleen McElroy's poetry bravely weather extremes of loss and love.by Valerie TruebloodPoetry Foundation Media ServicesSleeping With the Moon, Colleen J. McElroy. University of Illinois Press. $19.95Colleen McElroy once wrote a poem in which the machines--pistons and cylinders--rose up and ate the people. Mostly, though, what does the mauling and eating-alive in her work is love.

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-65772117445862664112008-08-07T17:34:00.000-04:002008-08-07T17:34:48.202-04:00

A new edition of Simone Weil's and Rachel Bespaloff's essays on the ethics of the Iliad.by Peter CampionPoetry Foundation Media ServicesWar and the Iliad, by Simone Weil and Rachel Bespaloff with an essay by Hermann Broch. Tr. by Mary McCarthy. Introd. by Christopher Benfey. New York Review Books. $14.95.It was an eerie coincidence. In Marseilles during the late spring of 1942, two writers at the

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-90001669811990467272008-08-06T17:36:00.010-04:002008-08-06T18:06:03.543-04:00

Two recent collections of poetry dwell in the revealing details.by Sandra GilbertPoetry Foundation Media ServicesBurn the Field, by Amy Beeder. Carnegie Mellon University Press. $14.95.Amy Beeder is a poet whose bio note provides a suitably salty background as "a political asylum specialist" and "a human rights observer in Haiti and Surinam." Closely observed and linguistically rich, Burn the

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-23819102478472107512008-08-05T20:06:00.000-04:002008-08-05T20:07:12.007-04:00

Djuna Barnes' Collected Poems: With Notes Towards the Memoir displays her fascinating and furious mind at work.By Brian PhillipsPoetry Foundation Media ServicesCollected Poems: With Notes Toward the Memoirs, by Djuna Barnes. Ed. by Phillip Herring and Osias Stutman. University of Wisconsin Press. $24.95.Djuna Barnes is one of those small, sharp points of vividness that seem to hover around

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-60080103906030028982008-08-04T16:15:00.000-04:002008-08-04T16:16:16.264-04:00

Poets Galway Kinnell and David Wojahn create American myths as often as they debunk them.by Peter CampionPoetry Foundation Media ServicesStrong Is Your Hold, by Galway Kinnell. Houghton Mifflin. $23.00.I once heard a famous British poet pronounce that most American poets merely make home movies. You get what he meant: the shrinking of ambition, the jittery technique, the staged sentimentality,

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-44108077706346650052008-08-03T19:40:00.000-04:002008-08-03T19:40:24.394-04:00

Hilarious and pious, Dick Barnes is essential to poetry's future.By Peter CampionPOETRY FOUNDATION SYNDICATEA Word Like Fire: Selected Poems, by Dick Barnes. Handsel Books. $17.00.The superb poems of Dick Barnes, who died in 2000, inhabit the same America as the photographs of Robert Frank or Gary Winogrand. They have that bright sheen of things as they are, and also that persistent undercurrent

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-88065825404526306952008-08-03T19:36:00.000-04:002008-08-03T19:37:17.507-04:00

The kaleidoscopic poetry of Kay Ryan and Major Jackson.by D. H. Tracy and Brian PhillipsPOETRY FOUNDATION SYNDICATEThe Niagara River, by Kay Ryan. Grove Press. $13.00.by D. H. TracyLike the Niagara River, Ryan's poems are short, fast, and generate a lot of power. The poems are all siblings, as distinctively typed on something as Dickinson's are on hymns--what that thing is called, I don't know,

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-9764273381256143212008-08-02T18:36:00.000-04:002008-08-02T18:36:47.880-04:00

C. K. Williams on becoming a poet, and how he creates English versions of ancient Greek dramas--without knowing any Greek.By David GewanterPoetry Foundation Media ServicesC. K. Williams is the author of numerous books of poetry, including The Singing, winner of the National Book Award. The full interview is available at www.poetryfoundation.org.David Gewanter: You've said that you wrote your

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-6477347891810405662008-02-16T21:55:00.002-05:002008-08-04T18:22:41.403-04:00

How a plate of food reminds Victor Hernández Cruz of history.by Francisco AragónPOETRY FOUNDATION SYNDICATEVictor Hernández Cruz was born in Puerto Rico in 1949, and his family moved to New York City when he was five. He has published nine books, including his most recent collection, The Mountain in the Sea, and currently divides his time between Morocco and Puerto Rico. The entirety of this

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-38061131834393337262008-01-25T00:55:00.000-05:002008-01-24T21:56:17.482-05:00

The new volume of Brooks's poetry may be too slim.by Danielle ChapmanPOETRY FOUNDATION SYNDICATEThe Essential Gwendolyn Brooks. Ed. by Elizabeth Alexander. Library of America. $20.00.What's better, love or respect? Most poets would probably prefer a combination of the two--that is, worship. Yet some of the most respected twentieth-century poets--T. S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, Robert Lowell, Sylvia

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-10427102046038253922007-12-31T01:17:00.000-05:002008-01-19T23:27:54.027-05:00

Two recent poetry collections offer a range of pleasures.by Peter Campion and D. H. TracyPOETRY FOUNDATION SYNDICATEAversions, by Devin Johnston. Omnidawn. $14.95.by Peter CampionDevin Johnston's second book takes the title of his new collection from the rite that ancient Romans performed to placate their dead. His is a book of hauntings: deceased loved ones, childhood bullies, ancient poets, and

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-50657973405869346492007-12-29T01:19:00.000-05:002008-01-19T23:27:54.027-05:00

Two recent poetry collections offer a range of pleasures.by Peter Campion and D. H. TracyPOETRY FOUNDATION SYNDICATEPoets of the Civil War, ed. by J.D. McClatchy. The Library of America. $20.00.by Peter CampionThe Civil War was our defining tragedy. Most of us know that commonplace. But maybe because it's so obvious, the war can also seem like a blind spot on our collective consciousness. After

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-31427896188936537112007-11-24T00:21:00.000-05:002008-01-19T23:27:54.027-05:00

Two recent poetry collections–one playful, one pleasurably eerie–to get us through the 21st century.by D. H. TracyPoetry Foundation Media ServicesFeminine Gospels, by Carol Ann Duffy. Faber and Faber. $11.00.I gather Carol Ann Duffy is the most popular poet in the UK, and the American publication of her seventh (adult) collection may be an opportunity to extend her empire. It could happen:

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-41294285777986811492007-06-20T03:15:00.000-04:002007-12-28T15:15:06.743-05:00

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006One big test of the endurance of any relationship is taking on a joint improvement project. Here Sue Ellen Thompson offers an account of one such trial by fire.Wallpapering My parents argued over wallpaper. Would stripesmake the room look larger? Hewould measure, cut, and paste; she'd swipethe flaws out with her brush. Once it was properlyhung, doubt

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-4778017767381290832007-06-20T03:14:00.000-04:002007-12-28T15:15:06.744-05:00

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006Houdini never gets far from the news. There's always a movie coming out, or a book, and every other magician has to face comparison to the legendary master. Here the California poet, Kay Ryan, encapsulates the man and says something wise about celebrity.HoudiniEach escapeinvolved some art,some hokum, andat least a briefincomprehensibleexchange

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-11401969137889904582007-06-20T03:13:00.000-04:002007-12-28T15:15:06.744-05:00

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006Naomi Shihab Nye is one of my favorite poets. She lives in San Antonio, Texas, and travels widely, an ambassador for poetry. Here she captures a lovely moment from her childhood.Supple CordMy brother, in his small white bed,held one end.I tugged the otherto signal I was still awake.We could have spoken,could have sungto one another,we were in the same

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-23586858327487550602007-06-20T03:12:00.000-04:002007-12-28T15:15:06.744-05:00

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006By describing the relocation of the moles which ravaged her yard, Washington poet Judith Kitchen presents an experience that resonates beyond the simple details, and suggests that children can learn important lessons through observation of the natural world.Catching the MolesFirst we tamp down the ridgesthat criss-cross the yardthen wait for the

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-1155160176687583642006-08-09T20:53:00.000-04:002007-12-28T15:16:01.116-05:00

by Gilbert Wesley Purdy.In the Heart of the Heart of Another Countryby Etel Adnan. City Lights Publishers, 2005.xvi+120 pp. $14.95 paper. ISBN 0-87286-446-4Etel Adnan is Franco-Lebanese-American. According to her standard bio, she was "born in 1925 in Beirut to a Muslim Syrian father and a Christian Greek mother." In those days, Beirut was a cosmopolitan city of considerable wealth and beauty:

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-1144970297398407882006-04-13T19:17:00.000-04:002007-12-28T15:16:01.117-05:00

Return to Book Review Index >>>Return to full Poetry Review Index>>>by Gilbert Wesley Purdy.The Feast: Prose Poem Sequences by Walter Bargen.Kansas City: BkMk Press, 2004.115 pages. $13.95 paper. ISBN 1-886157-39-1.Walter Bargen often takes on the persona of the biblical Jonah in his volume of prose poems, The Feast:No one notices even on days when he stands in the cashier's line at Wal-Mart,

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-1144519004642449822006-04-08T13:56:00.000-04:002007-12-28T15:16:01.117-05:00

Return to Book Review Index >>>Return to full Poetry Review Index>>> by Gilbert Wesley Purdy.Present Company by W. S. MerwinPort Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2005.140 Pages. $22.00 cloth. ISBN 1556592272.Mere months after Copper Canyon Press has released Migration, W. S. Merwin's selected poems (and recent winner of the 2005 National Book Award for Poetry), the volume is incomplete. Merwin’

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-1144197128449593462006-04-04T20:31:00.000-04:002007-12-28T15:16:01.117-05:00

Return to Book Review Index >>>Return to full Poetry Review Index>>>by Gilbert Wesley Purdy.Churlsgrace by William Hathaway.Gainsville: University of Florida Press, 1992.97 pages. $12.95 paper. ISBN 0-8130-1126-4.In a previous incarnation, I wrote a bi-weekly book review column, called "On the Shelf," for an arts tabloid out of Albany, New York. I was not the only one who found it astonishing (

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-1144191549620610482006-04-04T18:56:00.000-04:002007-12-28T15:16:01.117-05:00

Return to Book Review Index >>>Return to full Poetry Review Index>>>by Gilbert Wesley Purdy.The Tao of Mrs. Wei by Hilary ThamWashington, D.C.: The Bunny and Crocodile Press, 200376 pp. $12.00 paper.Chinese by descent and Jewish-American by marriage, Hilary Tham emigrated to the U.S., some thirty years ago, with a BA in English Literature from the University of Malaya. She has since settled in

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-1143918583362049412006-04-01T14:08:00.000-05:002007-12-28T15:16:01.117-05:00

Return to Book Review Index >>>by Gilbert Wesley Purdy.Sex Carnival by Bill Brownstein.Toronto: ECW Press, 2000250 pages. $22.95 Can, $18.95 US.ISBN 1-55022-415-8.Two factors changed our relationship to sex in the past century. The first was the introduction of cheap, effective birth-control. The second, market capitalism, has become the unchallenged law of the jungle. The results of these

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25192088.post-1143910897690282442006-04-01T11:49:00.004-05:002010-03-09T19:07:54.309-05:00

Return to Book Review Index >>>Return to full Poetry Review Index>>>by Gilbert Wesley Purdy.Mortal Arguments by Sue Sinclair.London, Ontario: Brick Books, 2003.96 pages $15.00 ISBN 1-894078-29-2.Secrets of Weather and Hope by Sue SinclairLondon, Ontario: Brick Books, 2001.86 pages $14.00 ISBN 1-894078-15-2.In November of 1920, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote to the Princess Maria von Thurn und

Gilbert Wesley Purdyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02612678869556343487noreply@blogger.com0