Great things always show up on the doorstep during the week before Christmas, so when I opened this exquisite little number I was immediately thinking about where I'd wear it, and promptly threw it over my shoulder with a flourish, only to realize that it was the new issue of The Journal, not a fly new bahtik shawl. Oh, the papercuts!Seriously though, it's a damn good read, featuring the likes of Charles Jensen and John Gallaher and my BGSU homie of yesteryear, George Looney. I love litmags and subscribe to many (not to mention all of the residual copies from unwon contests), but usually I'm in no hurry to consume them like triscuits. This issue is an exception. And look how seamlessly it blends into granite!
Sir Gallaher, some time you need to tell me which poets you read/enjoy. I think we have some aesthetic things in common. Maybe it's the detachment.
I will be spending the weekend sequestered in a remote location, sans internet, until all of the papers are graded. Many kudos to those who teach fiction workshops on a regular basis. I am spending like 8+ hours on 15 portfolios. Pretty soon I will start blending into granite too.
7 comments:
My favorite thing about lit mags: the corners. Good for chewing.
Speaking of lit mags, I was thrilled to get my note from RHINO, letting me know that "The Fish" will appear in the next issue. Thank you thank you thank you!
This is the first of my Millay Colony poems to be accepted somewhere, which sweetens the deal...
Cheers,
Sandra
Hoooray Sandra! It was so nice meeting you in Austin. See you in Atlanta?
I'll show you my list if you show me yours.
The dead person whome I return to most often is Stevens. (But everybody says that these days . . . which wasn't always the case. They used to all say WCW.)
The living is a long list. It's more a conversation than a list, really.
But today I'd say:
Michael Palmer
Martha Ronk
John Ashbery
Those three always charm me. But another list could be:
Charles Wright
Rae Armantrout
Bin Ramke
And I'd be just as happy.
Some younger poets I'm having a great time thinking with:
Jon Woodward
David Dodd Lee
Kevin Prufer
Joy Katz
Hadara Bar-Nadav
Richard Meier
Joshua Marie Wilkinson
And really the list just keeps on going and going. It must be the Energizer battery I put in it.
Thanks for the list, John!
I'd take H.D. over Stevens and Williams any day. I am perpetually nonplussed by my students' lack of interest in her, however. Really disappointing.
I dig a lot of international poets. A few favorites that I have been revisiting:
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Zbigniew Herbert (Hoorah! poems in this month's Poetry plus a new book coming out)
Vasko Popa
Also rather fond of:
John Ashbery
Margaret Atwood's poems from the 70s
Baudelaire (untranslated)
Barbara Guest
Frank O'Hara
Jim Harrison (I write about bears)
Denise Levertov
Peter Meinke (I'm not sure why)
James Schuyler
Other folks:
Diane Gilliam Fisher (Kettle Bottom. I don't use much vernacular, but this book really helped with the whole backwoods thing.)
Anything by Nin Andrews. I did a reading with her last year and it was so cool. She blurbed my book too. I am a lucky girl.
I just read some poems by Richard Siken and they struck me.
I think I have heard J.M.W.'s name a thousand times in the past few weeks, so I guess I better read his poems soon.
Margaret Atwood! What a shame she dumped us for the whole "fiction writer" thing.
I guess it's turned out ok for her, but you're right, her poetry from the 70s had a lot of verve and nerve.
H.D., yep. I'm always forgetting huge writers when making lists . . . if I see you in Atlanta, we can throw down on the list of all lists. The mother of all lists!
Now I have to go catch a plane. Now where did I leave my net?
Atlanta Listoff 2007!
Have a good MLA, too!
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