Poetry is not popular, perhaps because unlike fiction it demands a reader capable of giving all of his or her attention to the text. Dana Gioia’s own book (Can Poetry Matter?) is the best examination of the problems that poets…
Tag: poetry
A review of Nosferatu by by Dana Gioia
The poetic needs of a libretto can be reduced to very few. The words assist the music and are absorbed into it. Music must bolster up the more pedestrian passages but needs effective words to support dramatic action and vivid…
A review of The Body’s Question: Poems by Tracy K. Smith
Her poems are unpretentious, intelligent and consistently arresting by their beauty and their honesty. This is another triumph for Graywolf Press which seems unable to publish any but distinguished books. Reviewed by Bob Williams The Body’s Question by Tracy K.…
A review of Can Poetry Matter By Dana Gioia
The reader will not need to agree with Gioia to enjoy this book. It constitutes by the nature of its subject a wandering into both the unknown and the unknowable. But Gioia seldom goes so far into speculation that he…
A review of Poet Power by Thomas A Williams
If you are hording your masterpieces in a desk draw, hoping, like Emily Dickenson, to be discovered after your death, you may be doing the world a disservice. If you think that getting your poetry published is an impossible task,…
A review of All I Ever Wanted Was A Window by John West
The poems in John West’s fourth collection of poetry are strong, stark, and filled with a very ordinary ennui and pain that most readers will be able to relate to. At 61 pages, this slim volume contains an equal number…
A Review of Interior Despots edited by Sue Moss and Karen Knight
Faults notwithstanding, this is certainly an ambitious project, and where it works, it works powerfully. Naturally this kind of “assignment” will produce a large amount of subjective work, and the range of different voices and genres – the way in…
Interview with Dorothy Porter
The author of Wild Surmise talks about her love of astronomy, the writing of a verse novel and her own particular style, her characters, the state of modern writing in general, and poetry in particular, the film made of her earlier verse novel The Monkey’s Mask, her new opera, The Eternity Man and lots more.
A review of Robin Loftus’ Backyard Cosmos
Robin Loftus’ new collection of poetry Backyard Cosmos is a small collection, almost more of a pamphlet than a book, containing 50 pieces including a few haiku, but the work has that transformative quality which Ellmann refers to. Some of…
A review of Siren Singing by Suzanne Nixon
Suzanne Nixon’s poems are written in free verse, a description often indicating no more than extreme laxity. But she is scrupulous and has a tense, almost quivering, regard for felicities of sounds. The result is exquisitely crafted work that rides…