All about: anthology

Reading: Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) was a giant of Northern Irish poetry. He translated Beowulf into lively,  modern language. Heaney was an immensely popular ambassador of poetry. I have read a poem about strange fruits by Heaney before, and today I read again a detailed fruity allegory of our life: Blackberry Picking Late August, given heavy rain and sun ...
Reading: In Jerusalem by Mahmoud Darwish
Today I read a poem by Mahmoud Darwish (1942-2008) in a translation by Fady Joudah. Darwish was born in Galilee, in a village that doesn't exist anymore. He lived in exile in Beirut and Paris and published a lot of books. I know that he was considered a 'resistance poet' and served on an executive committee of the ...
Reading: Lost Love by Gregory Djanikian
Gregory Djanikian (b. 1949) is an Egyptian born American poet with Armenian roots. He writes about the emigration experience, in particular about the way the English language is enriched by immigrants. I read a love poem today: Lost Love Someone is walking up and down the street crying “My lost love, my lost love!” without ...
Reading: Between the Sultan and His Statue by Yusuf al-Saigh
Yusuf al-Saigh (1933-2006) was an Iraqi poet who has published poetry since the 1950s. He also worked as an illustrator and painter. I read a short verse that nicely renders the working of symbolic authority: Between the Sultan and His Statue A wily sculptor Cut several pounds off the sultan’s figure And added several pounds ...
Reading: Eating Together by Li-Young Lee
Li-Young Lee (b. 1957) is a American poet born to Chinese exiles. His father, who plays an important role in his poetry, was the personal physician to Mao Zedong. His poetry has been compared to John Keats, Rilke and Roethke and he was influenced by old Chinese poems like Tu Fu, which shows in his economic use ...
Reading: Currying the Fallow-Colored Horse by Lucie Brock-Broido
Lucie Brock-Broido (1956-2018) was an American poet who said that a poem is a 'thing that wounds'. Her poetry looks and sounds original, but she was influenced by Emily Dickinson and Wallace Stevens. Currying the Fallow-Colored Horse And to the curious I say, Don’t be naïve. The soul, like a trinket, is a she. I ...
Reading: Dusk by Rae Armantrout
Rae Armantrout (b. 1947) is one of the founding members of the West Coast group of Language poets (language poetry: started in the 1970s; language dictates meaning; reader participates in constructing meaning) . Her poetry is characterized by the clashes of the elements they are composed of. She has said that she is seeking to ...
Reading: Lines on my face by J.D. McClatchy
J.D. McClatchy (1945 - 2018) was a prolific poet, editor, critic and librettist from Pennsylvania. He was praised for his polished and erudite verse. Lines on my face Decades now of looking back at it— in some old satellite’s rearview mirror, say— has something to show beyond the folds and feeders, the volumes of magma ...
Reading: Wedding by Alice Oswald
Alice Oswald (b. 1966) is an Oxford-educated classicist and award-winning poet. She has written poetically about ecology and wrote her own take on the Iliad. Her 2016 book is called "Falling Awake". I read the 1996 poem "Wedding": Wedding From time to time our love is like a sail and when the sail begins to alternate from tack to ...