Photos Like Sonnets

“Swiss-born artist Rudy Burckhardt put poets on film and made photos work like sonnets.” Check out this article on the only photographer the New York School of Poets considered one of their own. This marriage of poem and photo, or photo as poem, poem as photo, brings us full circle, from writing with photographs to [...]

A Poem by Robert Haas

From Alex, Robert Haas’s “Heroic Simile” (He is the 2008 Pulitzer winner) Please share the poems (and stories and essays, of course) you come across during your writerly wanderings. How about compiling a collaborative list of must-reads for the summer?

Poetry Out Loud

Here’s a brief article from the Washington Post about the annual poetry recitation contest at GW University. The quotation from John Barr at the top of page two seems particularly fitting to our discussions last week about how important the sounds of words to our poems.

May Day Poem Exercise

In honor of May Day, here’s a playful prompt: A 14-line poem about May Every line must contain in addition to whatever other kinds of syllabled words you like, one (and only one) two-syllable word and one three-syllable word. A rich sound texture using repeated sounds and rhythms–you choose how The following words: stone, clever, [...]

Patchwork Poems

Feeling frustrated by this poetry business? Centos can really loosen up your creative machinary. A cento (latin for “patchwork) is a collage poem made up entirely (or almost entirely) of lines from other people’s poems. By rearranging or decontextualizing lines from other poems, your task is to create your own poem by stealing from other [...]

Translating poetry

Last night in workshop, Sean read “Keeping Quiet” (“A Callarse”) by Neruda. I don’t know who the translator was (Sean?), but it was well done and was conscious of rhyme, sound, and rhythm in the new language. A few of us noted, though, that we have read really bad translations that preserve little of (what [...]

Poetry Reading TODAY (Wednesday)

Hi guys — I just heard about a poetry reading happening tomorrow in the Grand Salon in the Chateau. The poet’s name is Fiona Sampson. I don’t know much else about the reading, but it’s at 4:30, and if you have a bit of free time in the afternoon it will probably make a lovely [...]

Being a Poet

I found the following in a response written by writer/editor Jennifer Bosveld of Pudding House Publications and felt that it called back to what we’re trying to do . . . “Poet is my title and the following is my job description: Spend 100% of my time observing the relationships between all things living and [...]

A Segue into Poetry: FAQ about the Business of Verse

I happened across this article in Slate today by Robert Pinsky, who was the poet laureate in the late 90s. I was initially quite excited; the article, subtitled “Frequently asked questions about the business of verse,” promised some window into the questions I’m trudging right now myself. And Pinsky’s questions are good ones! Isn’t so-called [...]