From “The Necessity to Speak,” by Sam Hamill Apr 6, 2022 poetry & 2020 “The true poet gives up the self. The I of my poem is not me. It is the first person impersonal, it is permission for you to enter the experience Reading Mark Nowak’s “Social Poetics:” Thinking About the First Tuesdays Cento and A ‘Flipped Script’ Poetry Reading Apr 6, 2022 poetry & 2020 I’m just a single chapter into Mark Nowak’s Social Poetics—the chapter is called “A People’s History of the Poetry Workshop: Watts, New York City, My Year Long Writing Project Apr 6, 2022 poetry & 2020 So. Thinking it would help prod me to start blogging regularly again—and, specifically, to start blogging about all things poetry and writing—I When Did You Start Writing? Jan 15, 2022 my work & poetry & 2022 In March of 2020, just before the pandemic shutdown, I received from John Wisniewski the first two of the seven or eight questions that would Craft Talk 3: Quincy Troupe’s Rhythm Apr 19, 2021 2021 & poetry I’ve been reading The Architecture of Language, by Quincy Troupe, and I have been fascinated by how rhythm and syntax interact in the way he builds My Response to the Erasure of Antisemitism in Namrata Poddar’s Article in the Recent Issue of Poets & Writers Oct 12, 2020 poetry & race & jewish & 2020 In an article called ”Return to the MFA: A Call for Systemic Change in the Literary Arts”, which Poets & Writers published in its September/October Lines That Didn’t Make the Cut: Sometimes It’s Just a Big Mess Aug 5, 2020 poetry & my work & 2020 I don’t remember where the first two lines of this came from, but somehow it ended up being a very long poem spoken mostly by a woman deciding to Commonplace Question #2: Are the Poems Part of a Conversation? Jul 24, 2020 my work & poetry & commonplace questions & 2020 This question, from Commonplace episode #2, Rachel’s interview with Nick Flynn, brought me back to a conversation I had with a friend named Ellie Lines That Didn’t Make the Cut: Ruth’s Story Jul 1, 2020 my work & poetry & 2020 It wasn’t like I showed him anything he hadn’t seen before. Besides, he took the ones with clothes, the good ones, only if I did a few from Commonplace Question #1: How Did You Become a Poet? Jun 28, 2020 my work & poetry & commonplace questions & 2020 I’ve been listening to Rachel Zucker’s Commonplace podcast for about two and a half years now. If you don’t know it, it’s definitely worth checking The Ethics of Bearing Witness in Poetry to Violence and Trauma Jun 13, 2020 my work & poetry & 2020 The issues raised when one chooses to make literary art out of trauma are complex. Over at the Ploughshares blog, for example, Tracy Strauss has a If You Read Rumi in English, Read This New Yorker Article Jun 5, 2020 iran & translation & poetry & islam & sufism & 2020 Written by Rozina Ali, the article is called “The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi,” and it says something that Iranians I know have been Lines That Didn’t Make the Cut: Remembering Claudia Jun 3, 2020 poetry & my work & 2020 The revision process leaves every writer with bits and pieces of work that no longer belong to the poem or story or whatever where they first Craft Talk 2: Packing Lines With Sound & Meaning - Rosa Alice Branco, Translated by Alexis Levitin May 29, 2020 poetry & craft talk & 2020 It’s hard to write about craft when you’re talking about a translation, especially if you can’t read the original, because it’s not always possible Prepping for Fall 2018: The Poetry Workshop Aug 10, 2018 poetry & 2018 This is from an essay called “Here Today,” in Hayden Carruth’s Effluences from the Sacred Caves. In my early years as a poet, I learned more about Craft Talk 1: Figuring Out Why a Poem Doesn’t Work for Me Aug 8, 2018 poetry & craft talk & 2018 A book I’ve been trying to make my way through this summer is Calling A Wolf A Wolf, Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar’s first full-length