Poetry and Poetics

This entry is part of a series, Poetry Scenes» When I’m asked about poetry in Chicago, I’m inclined to reply with the old Quaker response: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But, all I really mean is that Chicago is distinct in its poetics because there is no system, no unifying center that explains [...]

This entry is part of a series, mUutations» Warning: mUutations are a project from my other site, . They are arbitrary interpretive readings that change the poems into something they’re not. Proceed at your own risk. Here’s George Hitchcock’s “Dawn,” from his collection, A Ship of Bells: Clouds rise from their nests with flapping wings, [...]

On a recent gloriously sunny afternoon, I had the privilege of sitting down to talk over lunch with the poet Anne Winters, author of two critically acclaimed volumes of poetry and several translations. I was introduced to Ms. Winters’ work in graduate school and, ever since, have been an ardent admirer of her lushly orchestrated, [...]

Certain sections of broca’s area of the brain are involved both in how words are given syntactical order and how gestures, physical movements are interpreted as flow, as arc, as coherent actions. We know that broca lights up like a pin ball machine when shadow puppets are introduced before the eye. My theory of narrative [...]

Secrets of the Garden of a Vacant House Seen in a Dream (translated by Hiroaki Sato) Things planted in the garden of a vacant house are _______pine trees and such loquat trees___peach trees___black pine trees___sasanquas _______cherries___and such prosperous leafy trees___branches of leafy trees that _______spread around as well under the leaves of those swarming branches [...]

Three Prose Poems 1. He begins the day with very strong, black coffee. He sits in his reading chair and stares at The Iliad. He opens it, reads: “As the fighter tore out the blood came gushing forth / and his heart sank.” He puts the book down and thinks about what the world is [...]

Hook I tried to behave with my teaching assistant, with whom I was sleeping, as we laid out fresh worksheets and took positions front and back of a never-so-peaceful classroom. The kindergarteners knew before us, like a game of house, our sixteen inner-city children. Which of those lost boys or girls could be our Peter [...]