When was the last time you saw a list for The Top Poetry Sites? Now it exists, right here.
From Blush to Fiery Passion
Seventeen poems were submitted for our February prompt of “red, ” and they ranged from a mere hint of blush to an all-out fiery passion of RED. (I’m still fanning myself.)
Red Whistles at the Wolf
We’ve been celebrating the color red here this month at Tweetspeak, so red has been a bit on my mind.
Coming Home to Red
I was talking about words like a painter might talk about primary colors.
Alan Shapiro’s “Night of the Republic”
Poet Alan Shapiro loads his minds-eye camera with film (or, these days, a disk)
Tania Runyan’s “A Thousand Vessels”
A poetry review of A Thousand Vessels.
Dave Malone’s “Under the Sycamore”
Quick: name a contemporary love poem.
Stanley Moss’s “God Breaketh Not All Men’s Hearts Alike”
Now Moss has published what must stand as a testament to his career as a poet
Imaginary Logic By Rodney Jones
I hadn’t read Rodney Jones’s previous books of poetry (this one is his ninth), but I will now that I’ve read Imaginary Logic: Poems. It a collection full of the familiar and the everyday but described in unexpected and precise ways, and with an eye that is focused and accurate. The poems cover a wide […]
Tomaz Salamun’s “The Blue Tower: Poems”
Born in Croatia and raised in Slovenia, Slovenian poet Tomaz Salamun has published 30 collections of poetry in his native language. His poetry has been translated into more than 20 languages, and he’s had nine collection published in English. The Blue Tower: Poems is the tenth in English, and translated with the author by Michael […]
Donald Hall’s “The Back Chamber”
From the time I was 8 until I was 14, I spent a week each summer at my grandmother’s house in Shreveport. I would sleep in the second bedroom, which was always called “the back room” even though it and my grandmother’s bedroom formed the back of the house. It was the room with a […]
What is Poetry: Falling in Love, 1
The first step towards falling in love, of course, is the cultivation of friendship. And so I have to convince my students that poetry—and the poets who write them—are friends worth getting to know.
Where to Find Words
Is Twitter really mindless for the writer?
Philip Levine Named U.S. Poet Laureate
On Aug. 10, poet Philip Levine was named the U.S. Poet Laureate.
Matthew Duggan’s “Underworld: The Modern Orpheus”
Duggan has done something wonderful here with this retelling of an old, old story. He’s given it a modern sensibility while remaining true to its mythological origins.
Anne Overstreet: Influences and Faith
In June, poet Anne Overstreet published her first collection of poems, entitled Delicate Machinery Suspended: Poems. It is about memory and faith, affection and love, work done and work done well, and even playfulness. The poems are about a life observed, but also a life to come. It’s a beautiful work.
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell’s “Saint Sinatra”
St. Sinatra is a collection that is at once serious and humorous, focused and yet playful. It speaks to and about saints who are both familiar and known for being saints as well as those who are not.
Nick Samaras’ “Hands of the Saddlemaker”
Nicholas Samaras received the award in the 1991 for the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition for this volume of poetry, Hands of the Saddlemaker. Now 20 years old, it has aged well; its themes of exile, pilgrimage, separation and “in this world but not of it” are as current now as they were then, […]
Ava Leavall Haymon’s “Why the House is Made of Gingerbread: Poems”
When I was little, my mother would read stories to me from an oversized yet relatively thin edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It had a green cloth cover, and I remember it specifically because I still have it. (It’s also decorated with writing in crayon, but that’s another story.) One of my favorite stories was […]
“Kingdom Come: Poems” by John Estes
In 2009, we reviewed here a chapbook published by poet John Estes entitled Breakfast with Blake at the Lacoon. In the review we said that Estes effectively evoked a sense of both the literary and everyday reality. That same characteristic is true of his first collection of poems, Kingdom Come: Poems, published by CR Press, […]