Writing

On Poets and Speakers

by Emily Vogel December 13, 2010 Poetry and Poetics

One of the most curious aspects about poetry is that the element of “truth” presented in any given poem is never stable. With this in mind, the truth that the reader must accept at face value is constructed by the poet out of his or her organic impulses, and must be credible simply because the [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

How to Teach Writing to Beginners (Towards a Different Kind of Workshop, Part IV)

by Joe Weil November 5, 2010 Poetry and Poetics

This entry is part of a series, Towards a Different Kind of Workshop» For beginning writers, rules of thumb are important. My goals are simple: 1. Get them to avoid cliches–not of thought (almost all thoughts are cliche), but of language and image. 2. Get them to play with cliche so that they master them [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Jazz, Workshop, Fake books, & Misremembering

by Joe Weil November 2, 2010 Music

Musicians, jazz musicians, keep fake books–at least they used to–with all the chord changes as well as written-down alternatives they may want to try. Why don’t poets keep fake books? I know Thomas Lux has his own personal anthology of poems he likes or is interested in. It’s a great idea. To make a good [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

How to Ransack a Poem for Parts, Part II

by Joe Weil October 19, 2010 Poetry and Poetics

The other day, I posted a poem of Pablo Medina’s which I published in my second issue of Black Swan back in 1989. I put the magazine out with money from income tax returns. It was an act of love, an act of madness, and four issues went forth into the world before money prohibited [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Page 1 of 312 3 »