The Hammer Test: What Happens When a Poem Rings Hollow? “I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places.” That’s a saying often attributed to John Ashbery. He never actually said it except when quoting the poet Robert Duncan, who offered the words in praise of Ashbery’s poem Spring Day: “I have…
Poets: Nosey, Needy, and Daft I can’t speak for other nationalities, but as far as the English go, I hold with George Orwell, who said: “The most hateful of all names in an English ear is Nosey Parker.” And that brings me to poets. Who do they think they are, sticking their beaks where they’re not wanted? What is it…
In 1975 the poet Allen Ginsberg was in hospital. At a later poetry reading he explained the causes in an introduction to a poem that he had written from his hospital bed.: I got real angry and wound up sick in a hospital, for various karmic reasons, and woke up looking out the window, and started taking notes on what…