All about: anthology

Reading: Zebra by C.K. Williams
The great American poet C.K. Williams (1947-2015) writes in characteristically very long lines. He was a very engaged poet, for example with the nuclear disaster at Three Miles Island in Tar. He earned many awards and honors (National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize). I read a seemingly simple poem called Zebra: Zebra Kids once carried tin ...
Reading: Bat Cave by Eleanor Wilner
Eleanor Wilner (b. 1937) has a clear poetic vision that she has expressed in many publications. She once said that "our culture has made us shallow and dreamless by inculcating the myth that the individual is defined and set apart by his or her own personal experience." She is happy that poetry eludes attempts at ...
Reading: February by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) is an acclaimed Canadian novelist who also writes poetry, that I find quite accessible. I plucked 'February' from the interwebs: February Winter. Time to eat fat and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat, a black fur sausage with yellow Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries to ...
Reading: Larksong by Douglas Dunn
Today I read Scottish poet Douglas Dunn (b. 1942) avoided draft in Vietnam by returning to Britain, where he worked in a library with Philip Larkin. He is said to be a reflective rather than a reactive poet. I read a compact and intriguing poem about a lark (laverock in Scottish): Larksong A laverock in ...
Reading: Lives by Derek Mahon
We travel to Northern Ireland. Derek Mahan (b. 1941)'s poetry has been compared to Louis MacNeice and W.D. Auden. Some critics have called it 'too controlled'. I found this poem worth reading, with an attribution to yet another famous Irish poet: Lives (for Seamus Heaney) First time out I was a torc of gold And ...
Reading: Kanheri Cave by Dom Moraes
Dom Moraes (b. 1938-2004) was an Indian poet, widely regarded as foundational figure in Indian English literature. He was Catholic and struggled with alcoholism. I read Kanheri cave, I think it gives a good impression of the man's writing: Kanheri cave Over these blunted, these tormented hills, Hawks hail and wheel, toboggan down the sky. ...
Reading: Turns by Tony Harrison
Britain's leading theater and television poet is Tony Harrison (b. 1937), who is celebrated of the twentieth century's true working class poet. He is a translator, director, playwright who says that all is implied in the job description: poet. I read 'Turn' about his passed father, where the class consciousness becomes visible: Turn I thought ...
Reading: Dawn revisited by Rita Dove
Rita Dove (b. 1952) was the youngest Poet Laureate in the nineties and well-known to the American public. She has written a lot of longer, mythology-inspired stuff, but for our bric-a-brac anthology I read a shorter verse: Dawn revisited Imagine you wake up with a second chance: The blue jay hawks his pretty wares and ...
Reading: The Way Things Work by Jorie Graham
Jorie Graham (b. 1950) is another famous North American poet with a unique style. Pulitzer Prize 1996. Here is The way things work: The way things work is by admitting or opening away. This is the simplest form of current: Blue moving through blue; blue through purple; the objects of desire opening upon themselves without ...