Poplars and tentacles

Poplars by Donald Revell from Poetry Daily.
Audio by me below.
Hm. This one was hard for me to pull together and I have questions about it. On a broad level I read it as an environmental lament, on global warming, specifically. The most successful stanzas for me were S3 and S4 and I enjoyed the [...]

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An angel, a gunwale and a rib

Looking at In Another Year of Fewer Disappointments by Eliza Griswold from Poetry Daily.
The double-edgedness of life, in the midst of which we are in death and vice versa; watch what you wish for, you may get it. Killer opening line, really enjoyed the label “the minor angel” without thinking too hard about what a [...]

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The Minotaur

Inside the Maze by Hadara Bar-Nadav from Poetry Daily.
By and large this worked very well indeed for me. I’m always a sucker for thoughts from inside famous dead heads. In this case, the Minotaur. Smooth choice of detail and I like how the thoughts run on from each other and the overall feel of the [...]

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A woodpecker, a horse and the sun

On a Woodpecker Drinking from a Knothole Still Full of the Last Rain by Maurice Manning, from Verse Daily.
Lots to like here, starting with the title. Just too cool – so beautifully long and almost a poem in itself and the content of the piece such a non sequitur on the face of it. Nice [...]

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The dead, a sparrow and palmetto fronds

Why Bother Resurrecting the Dead by Jane Springer, from Verse Daily.
I read this as a doctrinal poem, in the sense that the narrator seems to be laying out a credo. One that is not in favor of organized religion and perhaps, more specifically, not enamored of Christianity’s tenets – the concept of life after death, [...]

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Seals!

Looking today at Imagining Seals by Susanna Roxman.
Seals are one of the many other things I’m a sucker for. At least, seals as more-than-seals. The Selkie-folk, you know.
I came therefore very disposed to like this one, but ended up rather disappointed. The first three strophes are the best part – starting out with that watch-out-what-gets-into-your-mind [...]

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Pentecost, pine tops, monkish rain

Looking at this one today. The Fourth Hour of the Afternoon by Michael Chitwood, in Field, via Poetry Daily.
Reading this as an optimistic piece. As always, I’m a sucker for religious underpinnings, and here I particularly like the title (although the “fourth” hour is a bit off in terms of the Divine Office, which goes [...]

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An old lady and a frog

I really enjoyed this one, Lauderdale by Laura Newbern in Poetry. I read as an expression of loneliness – extreme loneliness, even. Very pictorial, love the surreality of the grandmother sitting alone at dusk “in the light of the long pale pool” (cool sonics too) talking to a frog, the shades of her coiffured hair. [...]

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Milkweed spores, jellyfish, atoms and stars

Looking at this today, The Future by Campbell McGrath in the Virginia Quarterly Review.
I was initially much seduced by a string of very engaging bucolic images in this one, in particular, a forest where infant ferns grow shapely as serpents or violins and I thought
… if I could drift among the stars
as among a cloud [...]

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Going for this one

OK, I really like this. Asking for more by Sarah Manguso. Makes me think of Yvor Winters – clanging steel and rough-riding self-discipline even when it really hurts, but also with a grim funny edge to it. I hope to be nearly crucified is a line to die for, in my view, and so is [...]

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