So when I mentioned the April Poetry Challenge, I said I might post some of what comes out of that. Why not?Here's the second poem I wrote for the challenge--not the second challenge, mind you, but the second one I wrote. I'm not real sure how I feel about it yet, but here it is. … Continue reading Challenge Poem
Brain Surgery
When I go looking for stories about the writing process, I don't generally hit up the New York Times, but there's a piece today by Rosanne Cash that I found fascinating. There are, of course, major differences between writing poetry and writing songs--the music is an integral part of the effect of the lyrics, and … Continue reading Brain Surgery
Old Creepy Poetry
Not long ago, I discovered a poem by Sir Robert Aytoun titled "To His Coy Mistress." I was familiar with--as most people with English degrees are, I assume--with Andrew Marvell's poem of the same name, but had never read Aytoun's. The anthology I use for my Interpretation of Poetry classes has both poems side-by-side in … Continue reading Old Creepy Poetry
April Writing Challenge
Robert Lee Brewer is a guy I know primarily through Florida political writing. We're both bloggers on that subject as well, he at Pushing Rope and me at Incertus. But he's also the writer of Poetic Asides, which I've just added to the blogroll (under Robert's name), and he's doing a poem-a-day sort of thing … Continue reading April Writing Challenge
Seamus Heaney’s "The Forge"
Perhaps the thing I love the most about "The Forge" is the way it drags us back into the earliest reaches of civilization. The blacksmith, after all, was one of the most important members of an agricultural community--he kept horses shod, he kept plows sharp after having cast them in the first place, he was … Continue reading Seamus Heaney’s "The Forge"
Me. Not me.
There are a lot of people named Brian Spears out there, and a few of them are more famous than I am. That's not a high bar to clear, mind you--I'm a poet, for starters, and even the best known poets in the US are barely recognized at literary conferences. I don't even have a … Continue reading Me. Not me.
What’s the lesson here?
The anthology I use in my Interpretation of Poetry classes divides poems up by form and by theme. Since it's an introductory class, I tend to work with thematic similarities more than formal ones--sophomores, I've discovered, aren't as entranced with the sonnet the way I can be, but they can get into a group of … Continue reading What’s the lesson here?
Dismal Rock by Davis McCombs
In the end notes of his second book, Dismal Rock, Davis McCombs gives credit for the form of his opening sequence, titled "Tobacco Mosaic," to a sequence written by Les Murray. But I'd say there's another influence at play in the sound of those poems. His use of jargon and local description reminds me a … Continue reading Dismal Rock by Davis McCombs
Wendell Berry
Berry's on my mind because I just taught his poem "Enriching the Earth" to my second-year poetry students this week, and was dismayed (though not at all surprised) at how little they knew of the world they inhabit. We live in the industrial age of food, where an ever smaller number of people grow the … Continue reading Wendell Berry
What I’m Reading
I am woefully ignorant for a contemporary poet about the history of 20th century poetry. Part of that has to do with my graduate school, which focused on the New Critics and the Southern Agrarians when it focused on the 20th century at all, and I was far more interested in Dante in translation and … Continue reading What I’m Reading
Another Poem to Love 