Ann Marie Mikkelsen’s extensive research has yielded a very informative book on the use of pastoral themes in twentieth century poetry. Her prime exhibits are select poems by Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens and John Ashbery, but she also briefly covers works by Gertrude Stein, Lyn Hejinian and Lisa Robertson.
In no particular order, here are the notable books of poetry published in 2016 that are, in whole or inContinue Reading
Notwithstanding the naive premises of the popular form of pastoral, however stretched and strained, the genre remains remarkably durable, even if it is increasingly used as a touchstone more than a framework. In modern and contemporary poems we witness the popular pastoral portrait with its cracked varnish juxtaposed to modernism’s industrial high tech, conflicted morality and garish breaches of decorum; when they are combined, we have a distinctive form of irony.
The poem exerts a magnetic attraction, largely due to its lyric intensity and the unpredictable development of its content: from a pastoral setting on Cornell’s campus in Upstate New York (where the “single creek” featured in the poem cuts through the Cascadilla gorge), to the capaciousness of its scientific quantifications of the cosmos and the apparent awe inspired by the poet’s realization of his place in the universal scheme, and finally to the surprising lament at the end of the poem.
I was intrigued by Ange Mlinko’s newest published poem, “Cottonmouth” (Poetry Feb. 2016), a dense linguistic tour de force that weds the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice with a locus in the contemporary American landscape, using stacks of cultural references like sampled sounds and playing them against an urban rap rhythm, then overlaying that with a verse form that invokes Virgil and Dante as it might have been imagined by James Joyce.
As it is customary to herald the annual top picks in everything under the sun, including poetry, I wanted toContinue Reading
The Banquet of Donny & Ari: Scenes from the Opera by Naomi Guttman Naomi Guttman weaves the Greek myths ofContinue Reading
Loop of Jade by Sarah Howe My rating: 5 of 5 stars Loop of Jade is an amazing first collectionContinue Reading
A good friend had been pressing me to come to the Chautauqua Institution after he found out about myContinue Reading
Beauty Mark (BkMk Press 2013) by Suzanne Cleary is the 2014 winner of the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize. Cleary is aContinue Reading
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