I have been meaning to start a blog here, and I recently decided that now is the time to jump in, even if my posts are quite short and informal. So without much fanfare or fuss, here I go!
As I work on keeping up the poetry habit in some form (either writing or doing the reading to nurture the writing), I’ve found that I’m continually running into new good poems, and I’ve accumulated a lot of interesting articles and other resources. Plus, as a result of having a lot of poets in my social media feeds, great reading comes to me that way, too. It seems a shame to let these languish in my notes and bookmarks, so I’m going to post an occasional round-up of these links, called “From the Notebook.” The first installment is below. There will also be occasional brief yet more developed posts on a unified theme.
From the Notebook #1
Poem: “Meanwhile the elephants” by Mark Wagenaar. A playfully profound poem that I’ll let speak for itself.
“On valuing enthusiasm over perfection.” An interview with poet Eloisa Amezcua. This is from 2018 and is not the most up-to-date, but still a good read. About a year ago, there was much hubbub in literary circles about an article in The New Yorker titled “The End of the English Major” (may be paywalled for some). I liked how Amezcua’s journey from planning on a career in medicine to poetry was the opposite of the one taken by the students described in the article.
An old college friend posted this essay from the LA Review of Books recalling Jean Valentine, which is worth a read if you enjoy her work. But following that link led me to another recent article there reviewing an experimental memoir in which the writer reorganized sentences from her diaries in alphabetical order. This sounds wonderful for how it explores what the happenstance of language itself, the things that almost certainly would be lost in translation, can reveal.
If you’ve come across something poetry-related you’d like to share, please feel free to drop a note in the comments. Comments are usually held for moderation, so don’t worry if yours doesn’t appear right away.