The Sighted Singer

Tom Sleigh, Anthropologist

by Micah Towery June 1, 2011 Poetry and Poetics

First things, first. Full disclosure: Tom Sleigh was my teacher and thesis advisor at Hunter College. Fuller disclosure: my admiration for Tom’s poetry outweighs any personal loyalty to Tom (though I have that too). * * * Tom Sleigh’s method is art, but his end is anthropological. His vision is fully humane, an attempt to [...]

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More Construction Notes

by migration_test October 14, 2010 Academia

Just a few things to notice about the site redesign. 1. You can now login and comment with your Twitter, Facebook, Open ID, Yahoo, or many other accounts. In the process of this changeover, the old comments have disappeared. Fear not! They are not lost. We’re just in the process of importing them, and barring [...]

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Hamlet and his (Public) Problems

by Micah Towery May 28, 2010 Art

has an excellent radio show called , which is surprisingly high brow stuff. In particular, Ideas has been running a series based on . has been tracing for listeners the origin of the modern public. It’s worth listening to from the beginning, but if you’re short on time, the last three episodes on Dutch painting, [...]

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Closing a Poem (Blogging through Grossman, Part 6)

by Micah Towery April 6, 2010 Art

How do you know when you’re “done” a poem? I’m not speaking about revision, but rather, the act of writing, particularly lyrical free verse. Donna Masini once described it to me (or a class I was in—can’t remember which), as a settling in the body: a literal sense in the poet’s body that there is [...]

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Immortality (Blogging through Grossman, Part 4)

by Micah Towery March 23, 2010 Art

I’ve decided to change my strategy for blogging through Grossman. Not only is it almost impossible to try and successfully capture the first part of the book in any systematic way (the conversation shifts too rapidly and it’s almost maddening to trace any idea), but the second part is so lovely and systematically broken down, [...]

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Blogging through Grossman, Part 3: Poetic Promiscuity.

by Micah Towery March 2, 2010 Film

In their second conversation, Mark Halliday and Allen Grossman attempt to answer the question “Where are we now in the history of poetry?” I figured I’d highlight a few of the most interesting takes on poets of the last hundred years. I want to then use it as the basis of a discussion on the [...]

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Blogging through Grossman, Part 2: Grossman demolishes otherness?

by Micah Towery February 16, 2010 Philosophy

I probably should state right off the bat that I am not a philosopher by trade. If I mess up philosophical terms and definitions, feel free to correct me. I tend to have a more intuitive approach to philosophy, rather than a systematic one. Thus, I tend to explain things by analogy. I recognize the [...]

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Blogging through Allen Grossman, Part 1: The Role of Poetry

by Micah Towery February 9, 2010 The Other

First, I want to say it is an honor to be blogging with so many great minds and poets. Some of you I’ve met in person, and many of you I haven’t. I hope to get to know all of you, at least virtually. It will be fun to see where blog goes. Now, onto [...]

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