The Best American Poetry

Patricia Carlin presents a poem by Jon Woodward

Best American Poetry — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:39:00 PST

Today I’m posting “Salamander” (Barrow Street Winter 2005) by Jon Woodward. The poem affects me strongly, and I wanted to try to figure out how it works. Salamander The janitor asked me how to pronounce the creature’s name & I...

A Chat with David Wagoner [by Martha Silano]

Martha Silano — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:13:46 PST

And this week's guest blogger is . . . Martha Silano. Hello, everybody, and thanks for reading. I thought I'd begin my short stint by sharing a recent interview I had with this year's series editor, David Wagoner. I took...

Happy Birthday, Hoagy

Best American Poetry — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:03:00 PST

Happy birthday to Hoagy Carmichael, who wrote the melodies of "Skylark," "Stardust," "How Little We Know," "Lazy Bones," and "Georgia on My Mind." You may have seen him in such movies as "To Have or Have Not" and "The Best...

Martha Silano, Guest Blogger November 22 - 28

Best American Poetry — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:01:00 PST

This week we welcome Martha Silano as our guest blogger. Martha Silano's books are Blue Positive (Steel Toe Books)and What the Truth Tastes Like (Nightshade Press), and she is seeking a publisher for her third collection, The Little Office of...

What to Do with Poems About Old Boyfriends? By Tina Kelley

Tina Kelley — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:53:22 PST

Actually, old boyfriend poems could serve the purpose of getting you used to those chintzy polite slips, barely an eighth of a page, that say thanks but your poems aren’t worth so much as a quarter sheet of rejection.

Sonnet: "He called himself Blatchford Sarnemington..." (by Mitch Sisskind)

Mitch Sisskind — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:04:27 PST

He called himself Blatchford Sarnemington That night they all ate pork rinds. Name from ‘The Scandal Detectives,’ Fitzgerald story From Minnesota days. Yearning, yearning, None better than Scott put yearning on a page So he called himself Blatchford Sarnemington That...

Much Depends on Dinner: Cooking with Sloane Miller

Best American Poetry — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:20:06 PST

all photos©Christopher Labzda Sloane Miller and I were in grad school together though she studied poetry and I prose. Since then, she's used her love of language and writing, food and cooking to transform herself into an effective spokesperson and...

Four Contagious Poems by Tina Kelley

Tina Kelley — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:47:11 PST

When I sit down to write poems, which isn't often enough, I like to prime the pump by reading poems that inspire me, that have playful rhythms that stick in my head like a songworm.

The Decoy Sentence

Best American Poetry — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:56:25 PST

It is getting more difficult to tell the serious stories from the humor stories in The New Yorker. For example, which of the following sentences from the November 29 issue is (a) deliberately funny, (b) unconsciously bad, therefore funny, (c)...

Home by Tina Kelley

Tina Kelley — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:57:48 PST

This was the sloping kitchen floor. Any water spilled from the sink would collect in the hall across the room. This was the cold closet, the pantry, where Mr. Van Sickle, a 19th century owner and short man, fell into the pickle barrel during a party and drowned.