I Will Arise Now I will arise now, or not. There is no hurry. I can stroll, stare at the nasturtiums growing in the concrete planters on the sidewalk, or wander mid-morning, reading the backs of cans, comparing, at length, the astonishing quantities of salt in tomato and lentil soup. Once there was the evening … Read more
Are you worried about being indecisive? Have you ever tried to read a poem and then found yourself mystified by bits of French or references to Sisyphus or Keats or some dead Greek myth or whatnot that you never learned? And it makes you feel excluded before you’ve even started on the poem? Well, no … Read more
W3 by Nancy Richy via The Skeptics Kaddish. Take a look. Join in. And while I’m at it – – a silly ditty – a Quadrille – in exactly 44 words on the topic of myth for dVerse Poets’ Pub Myths Young Einstein passed math with style, And Marie Antoinette, meanwhile – Never said this: “Let … Read more
This week I’ve been arguing with Donald Hall, reveling in Letters from Iceland (W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice), and reading some rather good poetry. Hall died in 2018, so my debate with him has been entirely academic. My focus was his famous essay ‘Poetry and Ambition’, in which Hall introduced the term ‘McPoem’ to describe … Read more
We are all John Henry at the rock face battling with the steam-driven drill. I’m certain this is not an original thought, but it was new to me, so it felt that way. My introduction to John Henry was via Lonnie Donegan and his skiffle band on the radio as a child. You probably know … Read more
There are moments in literary culture when one senses, however faintly, that something is about to remain exactly as it is, but with unusual significance. Such a moment may now be upon us, as C. Langley Dunwood’s newest work, The Way Of It, enters consideration for the summer issue of The Seasloth Review. We are … Read more
Has This Happened To You? If you go to art museums and galleries you will probably recognize this. You leave the Met, say, and step back out into the world of Fifth Avenue and everything is changed. This happened to me most memorably leaving the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Whitney. His urban landscape was … Read more
This was the challenge of the W3 Prompt #191 today: Write a poem of 10 lines or fewer that places someone—or something—in a delightfully improbable location. Think sharks in a bathtub, a dragon in a bar, or any unexpected presence where it clearly doesn’t belong. Surprise us. Amuse us. Happy writing! You can read all about it here: https://skepticskaddish.com/2025/12/24/w3-prompt-191-weave-written-weekly/ My … Read more
The Sordid Boon Relentless doom-scroll gently civilizes Our minds, once prone to thought and other crimes. Authentic selves come in standard sizes – Pre-vetted truths, convenient for our times. Lived experience shall guide us like the Star, On this, good citizens, there’s no debate. We now identify: my pronouns are – And silence stamps the … Read more
I read a review of a “The Folded Clock: 100 Number Poems” that made this poetry collection peculiar enough to be intriguing. I recommend the review as a great introduction. The author is Gerhard Rühm, an author, composer and visual artist; he’s regarded as one of the key figures in the postwar European (neo)avant-garde, and … Read more
Here are two poems by H.D. neither of which were written in 1925 but both of which were included in her Collected Poems of that year. Storm You crash over the trees, you crack the live branch— the branch is white, the green crushed, each leaf is rent like split wood. You burden the trees … Read more
A recent post had the Rev. J. Alfred Prufrock at East Coker, dressed in plimsolls and meeting a merry band of assorted poets in East Coker. He commented on the season ( a cruel April) and suggested some stout to go with their lunch sandwiches. It seems a good time to give the T.S. Eliot … Read more
“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?” – Mr Bennet in Pride and Prejudice Nicola Sturgeon, the divisive former First Minister of Scotland, has published her memoir Frankly. Far from a triumph, it has been met with scathing reviews from critics who see … Read more
Poetry and the landscape are changing – and the poets are on the move. On a train leaving Paddington, to be precise, on a Sunday in April c.1943, in a special carriage stuffed with them. Joseph Gurnard’s Poets’ Excursion is an extended metaphor of the shifting tide of British poetry and of the changing face … Read more
My book arrived – hurray! Now I can get to work figuring out just whose noses Joseph Gurnard was tweaking in this delightful little burlesque from 1943, which pokes fun at the poets of the day and the shifting fashions of poetry. First, let’s be clear: this is no Roy Campbell-style slash-and-maim, burn-their-crops, ransack-their-houses takedown. … Read more