Seeing the Meaning: ‘The Collected Poems of Mary Ellen Solt’

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Concrete poetry, a literary arts movement started in the 1950s, is meant to reflect the material inspiring a poem through its emphasis on reduced language. One of the movement’s leaders, and one of its few American female contributors, was Mary Ellen Solt (1920-2007). Solt used the form to reject previous examples of prose poems and focus instead on creating work that was “communicating” to the reader its physical form and structure before its content could, thus bringing a poem closer to its words true meaning. Solt would edit the landmark 1968 anthology Concrete Poetry: A World View, which was published […]

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Feeling Through the Open Space: ‘Bashō: The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Bashō’

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If you are the author of a country’s two most beloved poems, you have officially made it. And if that country happens to be Japan—where poetry is a fundamental part of the nation’s fabric—you’ve made it twice over. You’re like Shakespeare and The Stones. This is the case for Matsuo Bashō, whose influence within Japan (and beyond) is so great, it is impossible to map. Bashō (1644-1694) is more contemporary than many people imagine. He was born the same year Descartes penned Cogito ergo sum, and several years after the death of Shakespeare. Thus, Bashō, at least chronologically, is a […]

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The Blue Angels / The Spirituals App

by David Roderick

The Blue AngelsHave you heard the sound of themduring Fleet Week the threat of our bruteaerial power flaying whole afternoonsin formation and turgid fumes over the Baymy friend at the Chron says they fly700 mph and 18 inches apartskimming the filigree of a sound barrieruntil they bang through foglike a truncheon hitting a skull I

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The Köln Concert

by D.S. Waldman

We showed up with a U-Haul and a Prius and could not see the ocean. They lay it on thick there, a friend had said of Pacifica, two, three weeks at a time. We pulled off at the bluffs before taking our things to the cottage on Winona. Five hours it took for the cat

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The Voices of the Whales

by Isabel Zapata

Translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers 1. I’m interested in the language of animals. 2. Whales, especially the humpback whale and the various subspecies of blue whale, are known to make repetitive sounds with different frequencies we consider to be songs. 3. When we look at animals, we hope to find virtues we lack. 4. Although sexual selection is thought to be their primary purpose, whale songs remain a mystery to scientists. 5. The human body is a symphony. (Charles Ives) 6. The universe is a symphony. (John Cage) 7. Nothing suggests that whales are trying to communicate with […]

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Coup de Vieux

by David L. Ulin

For Tom Mageethrice in three nightsthe dead have come my waytwice it is youtwin cities accentrough and lowlike a globusin your throatI can hear the timbreyet I cannot carryback a word you saythen last night my grandfatheran ancient apparitionif younger than hewould be aliveeighth of a millenniumsince his shtetl birth and allthat’s left is this

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Poetry Takes Bloom

by Tess Taylor

In the late spring of 2020, when everything seemed a bit bleak, I received a phone call from my old friend Hannah Fries, a poet who’d known me when I was writing poems and working on a farm in the Berkshires. Hannah is now an editor at Storey Press, and she had a fascinating proposal for me: Would

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‘Gardeners’ World,’ or What I Did During the Plague

by Cynthia White

“Gardeners’ World, or What I Did During the Plague”For that hour, only the earthof his garden. Dark and friableas chocolate cake, throngingwith nematodes and fungi,more microbes in a spoon than humanson the planet. A fear-free hour.An hour without my trip-wired heart.Were you aware the peony,like the potato, is a tuber?I was in love with his

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Q&A with Eileen Myles: Unwrapping time

by Valerie Braylovskiy

Poetry can encompass many shapes and qualities, including the singular capacity to open new pathways of understanding ourselves. A poet who achieves this feat is unafraid to take risks and question the quotidian. Eileen Myles has consistently been one of those poets. Myles’ newest poetry collection, a “Working Life” (Grove Atlantic Press, 267 pages), is perhaps their deepest and most personal exploration of what it means to be human. Myles says that “maybe time is the real subject of language,” and uses temporality to explore personal and public moments within a broader sociopolitical landscape. Born in Boston and now living […]

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Bearing Witness: ‘Bone Country,’ by Linda Nemec Foster

by Gus Berg

In Bone Country (110 pages; Cornerstone Press), the thirteenth poetry collection by Linda Nemec Foster, each poem is a snapshot, presented in a fragmented style that emphasizes the intensity of each image. Despite this fragmentation, the collection is united by a quick rhythm that propels the reader. Every piece is imbued with an intense sense of place in Europe. Warsaw, Krakow, Bratislava, the Tatra Mountains, Now Sac, Rzeszow, Tarnow, and the Baltic Sea all make early appearances. Poland is the central focus, from the beauty of natural landscapes to the horrors of war and occupation. The collection explores the tension […]

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Keeping It Light: ‘Always Alwaysland: New Poems’ by Stanley Moss

by Megan Luebberman

Having written several volumes over half a century, the critically acclaimed American poet Stanley Moss continues to offer galvanizing ideas, images, and feelings in his work. His latest, Always Alwaysland (239 pages; Seven Stories Press), contains more than 100 poems covering a wide range of personal, philosophical, and political topics. Using fanciful free verse and occasional rhyme schemes, Moss takes readers through his vivid memories and endless imagination.             While Always Alwaysland has no unifying theme, there are recurring ideas, such as the concept of language, reading, and poetry itself. Moss continually comments about the nature of the poet and […]

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Broken Home: ‘Archipelago,’ by Laila Malik

by Zoe Binder

            From the first piece in her debut poetry collection, Archipelago (86 pages; Book*hug Press), Laila Malik ponders the complexity and impermanence of home, a concept that sometimes stretches across continents. The metaphorical loss of place through multigenerational migration and the literal loss of land through climate change are connected in each of the collection’s four sections (“precambrian”; “petroleum by-products”; “half-life of exile”; and “kufic”).             Many of the pieces in Archipelago are written in the second person, interspersed with the expanded first-person perspective “we,” transforming a collection of personal reflections into a subtle set of instructions. Malik’s poems carry […]

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