anthology | Kamiel Choi

Reading: In The Summer by Nizar Qabbani

Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998) was a Syrian diplomat, poet and publisher. His poetic style combines simplicity and elegance in exploring themes of love, eroticism, feminism, religion, and Arab nationalism (Wikipedia). I read a simple love poem, translated by B. Frangieh And C. Brown, that sounds unmistakenly Arabic: In the summer In the summer I stretch out on the ...

Reading: Tarantella by Hillaire Belloc

Hillaire Belloc (1870-1953) was a prolific Anglo-French poet and historian who was considered one of the four great British writers of the Edwardian age, along with Chesterton, Shaw and H.G. Wells. "Among his best-remembered poems are Jim, who ran away from his nurse, and was eaten by a lion and Matilda, who told lies and was ...

Reading: The Day I Got My Finger Stuck Up My Nose by Brian Patten

From Liverpool poet Brian Patten (b. 1946) I have read several poems about lost or budding love and lost friendship, that I could enjoy for their direct and precise language. Patten has written many poetry books for adults and children during his long career, and is associated with poems like Philip Larkin and Alan Ginsburg. I ...

Reading: Conscientious Objector by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Today I read Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950). She was an important American poet was an eccentric, humorous and politically outspoken figure. She was called the 'Herald of the New Woman' by her biographer. She was a skillful writer of sonnets, and, like her contemporary Robert Frost, combined modernist attitude with traditional forms. We read ...

Reading: White Comedy by Benjamin Zephaniah

Benjamin Zephaniah (b. 1958) is a British-Jamaican poet who has considerable influence in contemporary poetry. He was born in Birmingham to a Barbadian father and Jamaican mother. As a child, he developed dyslexia and was imprisoned for burglary. He is also the author of novels for teenagers and a notable animal rights activist. He refused ...

Reading: Fog by Amy Clampitt

Amy Clampitt (1920-1994) from Iowa wrote most of her poetry when she was over sixty. I found a poem entitled 'fog' that I like because of its precise description: Fog A vagueness comes over everything, as though proving color and contour alike dispensable: the lighthouse extinct, the islands' spruce-tips drunk up like milk in the ...

Reading: Because You Asked Me About The Line Between Prose And Poetry by Howard Nemerov

Howard Nemerov (1920-1991) was a versatile American poet, known for his refined formalism (he wrote often anthologized sonnets like 'A primer of the daily round', as well as his wit. Here is a fine short poem about the reversibility of time: Because you asked me about the line between prose and poetry Sparrows were feeding in a ...

Reading: Jane by Howard Moss

American poet, dramatist and critic Howard Moss (1922-1987) won the National Book Award in 1972 for his selected poetry. He was the poetry editor of the New Yorker for almost forty years and a great discoverer of poets. Moss also wrote a funny illustrated book of writer's parodies called 'instant lives'. I read 'Jane', a poem ...

Reading: Another Species by Peter Kane Dufault

American poet Peter Kane Dufault (1923 - 2013) was also a tree surgeon, pollster, fiddler and banjo-player. His writing career spans nearly sixty years. Here a simple poem about species extinction, because it is a topic I am upset about: Another Species Kestrel too? Dwindling now? That small falcon somehow quarried out of a rainbow ...