Anahid Nersessian claims that her book is a kind of love story between her and Keats’ odes. But it turns out we have to take her word for that. Too often this study comes off like an acrimonious couple’s counseling session.
Poetry
Poetry Review: “Field Music” — Lyrical Visions of Hardscrabble Vermont
The voice in Field Music is disciplined, its cagey earthiness unfailingly engaging our attention.
Poetry Review: Paul Celan — The Anguish of Writing in a “Damaged” Tongue
Poet Paul Celan has come to embody in person and in print the agonies of a half century of European culture.
Poetry Review: “Any Song Will Do” — A Very Worthwhile Discovery
Donald Levering’s poems exhort us to be less left-brained, to side more often with intuition, creativity, flights of fancy.
Poetry Remembrance: John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” — Forever Young at 200
Keats is comfortable in that ambiguous space between reality and the imagination, and you will find no finer example of Romantic poetry when he fuses them in the language of an erotic dream.
Poetry Review: “I Aint Yo Earthmama” — Poets Susan Barba and Wanda Coleman
The two books reviewed here represent the launch of the reborn Black Sparrow Press under the auspices of David R. Godine, Publisher. Very exciting. Let’s give them a big warm Boston welcome!
Poetry Review: “The Mother House” — Poems with the Demeanor of Nuns
In these poems, contemplation, serenity, and service are the order of the day.
Poetry Review: The Verse of Rowan Ricardo Phillips — Let’s Get Weaponized?
Rowan Ricardo Phillips attempts to combine a woke perspective with his vast knowledge of poetry from the past.
Book Review: Robert Hass’ “Summer Snow” — Always Awake on the Coast
Wherever Robert Hass is, the poet drinks in (and reports to us) the details of place and human activity.
Poetry Review: Richard J. Fein’s “Whitman/Vitman” — A Vigorous Homage
It’s hard to think of a contemporary poet who has engaged so passionately and devotedly, over many decades, with a single forebear.