From Liverpool poet Brian Patten (b. 1946) I have read several poems about lost or budding love and lost friendship, that I could enjoy for their direct and precise language. Patten has written many poetry books for adults and children during his long career, and is associated with poems like Philip Larkin and Alan Ginsburg. I …
Donald Davie (1922-1995) was a rather philosophical poet and scholar. His decisively English style is strong and confident and has been likened to Larkin and Hughes. I read ‘A spring song’: “stooped to truth and moralized his song” Spring pricks a little. I get out the maps. Time to demoralize my song, high time. Vernal …
Today I read Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950). She was an important American poet was an eccentric, humorous and politically outspoken figure. She was called the ‘Herald of the New Woman’ by her biographer. She was a skillful writer of sonnets, and, like her contemporary Robert Frost, combined modernist attitude with traditional forms. We read …
Chilean poet Nicanor Parra (1914 – 2018) was also a mathematician, physicist and cosmologist and an important figure in Latin American poetry who won the Cervantes prize. His Poemas y Antipoemas is a classic of Latin American literature. I read ‘Young poets’ in a translation by Miller Williams: Young Poets Write as you will In whatever style you …
Benjamin Zephaniah (b. 1958) is a British-Jamaican poet who has considerable influence in contemporary poetry. He was born in Birmingham to a Barbadian father and Jamaican mother. As a child, he developed dyslexia and was imprisoned for burglary. He is also the author of novels for teenagers and a notable animal rights activist. He refused …
Without further ado, let’s assume the AI has all information available and imagine a debate with the world’s foremost human intellectual. The AI will have a flawless argument that takes into account all the information in a superhuman fashion a human intellectual can never attain. Its rational reasoning is far superior. Recall the 2016 victory …
Amy Clampitt (1920-1994) from Iowa wrote most of her poetry when she was over sixty. I found a poem entitled ‘fog’ that I like because of its precise description: Fog A vagueness comes over everything, as though proving color and contour alike dispensable: the lighthouse extinct, the islands’ spruce-tips drunk up like milk in the …
Howard Nemerov (1920-1991) was a versatile American poet, known for his refined formalism (he wrote often anthologized sonnets like ‘A primer of the daily round’, as well as his wit. Here is a fine short poem about the reversibility of time: Because you asked me about the line between prose and poetry Sparrows were feeding in a …
American poet, dramatist and critic Howard Moss (1922-1987) won the National Book Award in 1972 for his selected poetry. He was the poetry editor of the New Yorker for almost forty years and a great discoverer of poets. Moss also wrote a funny illustrated book of writer’s parodies called ‘instant lives’. I read ‘Jane’, a poem …
A few months ago, in a period of soul-searching that can happen to the best of us, I fell in love three times. I try to be a faithful poetic observer and report to you how exactly that happened. My first amorous encounter was with Cuban superstar Camilla Cabelo, chiefly because of her aphrodisiacal voice …
American poet Peter Kane Dufault (1923 – 2013) was also a tree surgeon, pollster, fiddler and banjo-player. His writing career spans nearly sixty years. Here a simple poem about species extinction, because it is a topic I am upset about: Another Species Kestrel too? Dwindling now? That small falcon somehow quarried out of a rainbow …
Find a comfortable place to sit. Be aware of your posture. Is your back straight, are your knees below your waist? Breathe in calmly and deeply. Focus on the phenomenon of power. When have you experienced power over another living being or another living being exercising power over you? How did it feel? Is the …
Anthony Evan Hecht (1923-2004) was born in New York. His parents hated his ambition to become a poet. He fought in WW II and was traumatized by te horrific accounts of the French prisoners of Flossenburg, the concentration camp his division liberated, leading to a nervous breakdown in 1959. I read soemthing light today, it’s …
The poetry of Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) never fails to impress. Lazarus and Daddy are household names in poetics, and the entire book Ariel counts as a masterpiece. You can find plenty of wonderful writing on Plath on sites like the Academy of American Poets. Here I read ‘Morning song’ and, as usual, give an interpretation …
L.E. Sissman (1928-1976) was a child prodigy who won the National Spelling Bee. He had a typical American middle class career in a time when that was still possible, but he also had the calling of a poet. He was diagnosed with Hodgkins’ disease in the late sixties, which inspired him to write prolifically: I. …
Donald Justice (1925-2004) was a quietly influential poet from Iowa with a sharp and versatile mind. He wrote free form poetry as well as sonnets, sestinas and villanelles. His Selected Poems won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize. Here is The evening of the mind: The evening of the mind Now comes the evening of the mind. Here …
