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February 20, 2019Poetry School: Rilke’s advice against advice
My aversion to the poetry workshop grew quickly many years ago. Let me correct that: my aversion to the untutored, undisciplined poetry workshop.Although I’ve been writing poems off and on since I was ...
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February 16, 2019Poetry School: Denise Levertov on form as a revelation
After reading poet Denise Levertov’s 1965 essay “Some Notes on Organic Form,” I had a revelation: I write poetry mainly in organic form. Given that the notion of the work of art as a self-germinating ...
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February 12, 2019Poetry School: The insincerity of Louise Glück
In my invitation for you to join me this month at Poetry School, I promised to offer up morsels of wisdom about writing poetry from an assortment of essays on the topic. Today I dig into an essay by American ...
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February 08, 2019Poetry School: Keeping it real with Wordsworth
Lyric poetry. We say it casually, but what does it mean? The musical connotation is there, even if we don’t accompany our lyric poems with music. An inherent music, then. The lifts and falls. Rhythm. ...
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February 04, 2019Poetry School: An invitation
Over the next month I invite you to join me at Poetry School. I will not be the teacher, but merely the messenger, a fellow student. Though the balance may one day shift, for me writing poetry is about ...
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January 31, 2019A Title Should Be a "Dream in Which the Work Lives": Talking with our February 2019 writer-in-residence Deanna Young
Ottawa poet Deanna Young is the author of four collections of poetry, which have earned her praise and nominations for numerous prizes including the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, the Ottawa Book Award, ...
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January 22, 2019"Something Deep in Me Was Watchful" Poet Agnes Walsh in conversation with Beth Follett
Agnes Walsh's Oderin (Pedlar Press) is the first collection in over ten years from the Newfoundland poet. It's writing that is worth the wait - the collection is a set of powerful, beautiful poems steeped ...
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January 09, 2019Poet Susan Gillis on Landscapes, Ecologies of the Heart, and Czeslaw Milosz
Partly inspired by a memorable line in a Czeslaw Milosz poem, Susan Gillis' new collection Yellow Crane (Brick Books) is sharply observed and lovingly rendered, casting an observant and incisive eye ...
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November 05, 2018Kim Trainor on Capturing Both a Tattooed Iron Age Woman & Modern Day Trauma in Her Book Length Poem
In 1993, a Russian scientist discovered the mummified remains of an Iron Age Pazyryk woman. She was covered in tattoos and buried with great ceremony. During the complex and difficult excavation, the ...
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October 15, 2018Contest! Win a Prize Pack of Original Works from Brick Books
Three incredible poets: Julie Bruck, Deanna Young, and Susan Gillis. Each one has a brand new collection out this fall: Brucks' How to Avoid Huge Ships, Young's Reunion, and Gillis' Yellow Crane. It's ...