The Best American Poetry

At twilight the locusts begin

Emma Trelles — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:24:06 PDT

The moment you put the blah-blah-blah on it, it destroys the whole thing. I am currently fixated with the late painter Joan Mitchell. My obsessions with artists usually come courtesy of a documentary film, one I can record (let us...

"The Menu" [by Terence Winch]

Best American Poetry — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:01:00 PDT

The Menu Watched some videos of you singing about the famine, which made me really hungry. I ordered the worst food on the menu, the most powerful drinks. I sat below a giant screen on which the golf championship went...

Biceps, Rodin, The Humble Pen, and Ballet [by Emma Trelles]

Emma Trelles — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:44:32 PDT

A few nights ago I attended a bodybuilding-meets-visual art event at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale. Yes, there were micro-bikinis and oiled muscles, but there was also a panel of humanities professors noting how the human form has...

Emma Trelles, Guest Blogger July 12-18

Best American Poetry — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:00:00 PDT

This week we welcome Emma Trelles as our guest blogger. Emma is the author of Little Spells (GOSS183). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee for poetry and an arts and culture journalist. Her writing has appeared in publications such as...

The Fast Flying Vestibule: I’m Glad I’m Prepared for the Recession (Terence Winch)

Terence Winch — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 06:55:08 PDT

terry winch, jesse winch, alan oresky, joe stork, pete adland, doug pell ca.1973. Once upon a time (actually, late 1971), the strangest old-time string-band in American musical history was formed, and I was there at the beginning. The Fast Flying...

"Supernatural Love" [by Gjertrude Schnackenberg]

Best American Poetry — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 08:32:00 PDT

Supernatural Love My father at the dictionary stand Touches the page to fully understand The lamplit answer, tilting in his hand His slowly scanning magnifying lens, A blurry, glistening circle he suspends Above the word 'Carnation'. Then he bends So...

Sir Larry

Best American Poetry — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 05:15:17 PDT

On this day in 1989, Sir Laurence Olivier breathed his last. The great actor was eighty-two when he shuffled off this mortal coil. He mastered accents and disguises. As a young man he played the romantic ("Wuthering Heights,""Hamlet," "Rebecca"). In...

Eileen Myles’s Cool for You: An American Classic (Terence Winch)

Terence Winch — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:53:47 PDT

A few days ago, I wrote about the Irish-American reading at St. Mark’s Church in Manhattan in 1982, focusing on the work of the great Ted Berrigan. One of the other readers that evening was Eileen Myles (Download EileenMyles-onTedBerriganEileen Myles)....

Because it is bitter, and because it is my heart . . .

Best American Poetry — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:33:07 PDT

This news item from the LA Times crossed our desks. Apparently some psychiatrists are proposing to identify bitterness as a mental illness. One of them defines bitterness as anger plus hopelessness and explains that those who succumb have a profound...

"MS" [by Berwyn Moore]

Best American Poetry — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:52:00 PDT

MS for David Lehman MS stood for Mary Shelley, or magnetic storm, for mackerel sky in Mississippi, or malfeasance at Microsoft. The mother ship sank. Mother Superior scoffed. The mystery shopper slunk among suede mules and mauve sheets. Megastars slung...

Un autre truc

Jennifer Michael Hecht — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:08:07 PDT

Much beloved Bleaders, Like Victor Frankenstein, before he made his big fellow, I was in the wrong century by several. My first introductions to what living poets were, occurred when they translated the long dead. Among others, Bly/Basho: The morning...

Geoff Young: Style, Insight, and Durability (Terence Winch)

Terence Winch — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:31:17 PDT

Let us now praise Geoff Young. In particular, the poems in Lights Out, which I think of as one of the necessary books of our time. In Geoff’s work, all kinds of pleasures and provocations abound—you get the playful silliness...

Desert Island Disks (from the Poetry Society of America)

Best American Poetry — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:52:17 PDT

The Poetry Society of America has initiated a series of "desert island disks." Poets are asked to name the five record albums or sets they would take with them to the proverbial desert isle. Brenda Hillman was the first to...

"Little Portion" [by Todd Boss]

Best American Poetry — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:29:00 PDT

Little Portion A friend tells me never to use the word little in a poem. Later I discover Anne Porter’s song of Little Portion, in Umbria, where an 800-year-old church is rumored by the local people to ring with the...

It's So Nice to Have a Girl Around the House - Creepy Vintage Ads

Best American Poetry — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:03:45 PDT

Thinking about the return of Mad Men got me thinking about advertising. I guess we've come a long way baby since these creepy vintage ads. How would you like to have been in the room when they dreamed up #13?...

Chris Mason: Old Timey+Ancient=Brand New (Terence Winch)

Terence Winch — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:07:12 PDT

Baltimore is a wondrous place whose praises I have sung, literally ("In Praise of the City of Baltimore"). It is the home of the American Visionary Art Museum, my favorite place for outsider art. But in Baltimore, everything seems like...

Roaming Around [by Moira Egan]

Moira Egan — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:57:03 PDT

[Backdrop to La Festa dell'Editoria Romana] With all due apologies for my bloglessness, I can blame it on jet lag. Well, for a while I could, now I'll have to blame it on something else. I'm glad Jill Essbaum reported...

Take THAT, Mr. Williams. You CAN get the news there!

Best American Poetry — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:17:49 PDT

Our friend, writer and filmmaker Robert Shore, sends us this link to an NPR story about the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz's recent experiment with having poets takeover the newspaper for a day. So, who would your dream poet-reporters be? What beat...

Greg Santos presents "Aphids" by Jason Camlot

Best American Poetry — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:03:00 PDT

Jason Camlot’s poem “Aphids” exemplifies his playfulness with language and his sharp wit. Every line is funny. Camlot takes well-known aphorisms, turns them on their head, and makes you think of habitual language in a new light. The decadent themes...

Mitch Sisskind presents a poem by Shaindel Beers

Mitch Sisskind — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:06:03 PDT

I found the work of Shaindel Beers online. I was interested that she grew up in rural Indiana where once I was wont to roam. In the town of North Liberty a man asked me the date. I told him...