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…
Before the fragmented world of Instagram poets and TikTok book clubs, there was New World Writing: fifty cents, one paperback, and a whole literary world right on the magazine shelf at the drugstore and at the corner newsstand. Paperbacks, a Party, and Poets: The Story of New World Writing One evening in December 1951, a crowd gathered in an apartment…
Two poets in a muddle. Or rather two poems. John Ashbery’s A Mood of Quiet Beauty (from April Galleons 1987) meets T.S.Eliot’s first Prelude (Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917) You can read the originals at those links. In the spirit of OuLiPo – and just for the playful hell of it – I switched out the nouns in each poem in…
Digging into the women writers of WW2 led me to the short stories of Anna Kavan whose life and work brought to mind Gertrude Abercrombie whose art is often said to be influenced by Giorgio de Chirico who wrote what John Ashberry called the first surrealist novel – Hebdomeros – that some have compared to Anna Kavan’s novel Ice that…
February came and went. As Februarys do. As we approach the anniversary of “the year of living hunkered” in what we call our gilded cage, I’m reflecting on the month. We had snow. Lots of it. Then more snow. This made for some icy walks and some muddy walks and early morning vistas of pink and white. The head beam…