Jeff Gundy
The traveler ponders some rumors that have reached his ears
He’s heard stories of amber, of winter storms that deposit
yellow knurls and knuckles the length of the long beach
that runs north to Palanga, of roads jammed even in winter...
Free will in the late capitalist era
The long slow mills have no choice, the freeway has no choice.
The empty fields have no choice, when the snow falls they agree
...
The poet and politics
As two new biographies and a massive collection of poems show, Denise Levertov's distinctive work and life remain relevant and rewarding.
Contemplation with red bridge and windy sunshine
The space between two people never quite closes. That’s
all right. It’s the rub of surfaces we need anyway, the slow
Yellow Trail at Laurelville on Rapture Day
I could sit down on this rock, partway up the hill. No time
for the overlook, much less Split Rock. A good day
for caterpillars and new greenery, mushrooms and
Evening rhapsody between Madison and Whitewater
Too much of anything is better than Milwaukee's Best
when the first snow hits in November and I'm already sick
Evidence: Poems/God Particles: Poems
Not so long ago, the standard view was that American poetry had been thoroughly secularized by the great modernist poets, ...
A second time around
What books compel a second—or third or fourth—reading? How is the second reading different from the first, and what does the difference reveal about the book or the reader? We asked ten writers, including Margaret Miles, Gordon Atkinson, Mary Doria Russell, Diana Butler Bass and David Cunningham, to name a book that they chose to reread, and to share their reactions "the second time around."
Jewel in the heart
It came to me as I waited at the desk, thinking how to turn
another scattered group toward the day’s work: I want a bell....
Contemplation at the Bar R Ranch
Both the owner and his daughter said we’d have to see the crosses,...
Collected Poems, 1943-2004
The dates in the title tell of Richard Wilbur’s remarkable longevity. Once a youthful prodigy, he became part of poetry anthologies 30 years ago....
Praise is a language
The young preacher said so and then hurried on and the girls
who had led the praise songs nodded and whispered in the front pew...
Peaceable poet: William Stafford's witness
When William Stafford died in 1993, he was not the most famous or most critically acclaimed poet around, but he was certainly among the most beloved....
Flesh becomes word: The incarnational poetry of Scott Cairns
From Baptist to Presbyterian to Orthodox—that’s hardly a conventional trajectory for an American Christian....