Daughter of the Ring of Fire » Blog Archive » Help Me Feel Good about Poetry Again

Jul

2009

Help Me Feel Good about Poetry Again

Posted on 13:26, July 1st, 2009 by EKSwitaj

Read my latest story, "A Tale of Two Birthdays", at 52|250.

Lately I’ve been writing a lot of negative statements about poems and their publishers. That isn’t something I enjoy, and it isn’t really what I’m about. Yes, my critiques come from a place of love (of poetry), but that isn’t always apparent and, frankly, this sort of criticism isn’t fun.

To help me get out of this rut, I’d like to ask all of you to leave a comment with a link to a poem you enjoy. I’ll even sweeten the deal by choosing one person who comments on this post by Friday to receive a copy of my book, Magdalene & the Mermaids. (If you’re interested in this, be sure to leave a valid email so that I can contact you.)

Marianne Moore’s five-decade struggle with “Poetry.” (slate.com)
Source of Lit – Unsaid – A. Minetta Gould (emergingwriters.typepad.com)
Septic poetry (languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu)
“In the Cafe” (slate.com)
BBC Poetry Series Drives Sales (mediabistro.com)
A New “Lit Riffs” Addition: A Weekly Post Of Influence (seattlepi.com)

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Tags: Arts, literature, Online Writing

Posted in poetry | print

2 Responses to “Help Me Feel Good about Poetry Again”

Isabel on July 1st, 2009 at 9:04 pm

does it need to be by a living poet? because if not, the poem i have been obsessively rereading all day is here: http://errancia.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/song/
i love the ambiguity at the end created by the lack of punctuation, and the line about eros & venus, but most of all i just think it is as perfect an expression as i have ever seen of the despair of love.
Isabel’s last blog ..(via mrbadboybrody)

UNFFFF.

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EKSwitaj on July 2nd, 2009 at 11:00 am

Poets living, dead, and undead are fine.

I think, of the O’Hara piece, I like the first stanza best myself–the qualification “and not just of modern life” confirms the most obvious interpretation but encourages the reader to think further.

Also, I wonder if there’s any significance to the second line being longer in the second stanza than it is in any of the others.

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