Robert Lowell

Lowell’s Bedlam: John McCullough

by John McCullough July 6, 2011 Poetry and Poetics
Thumbnail image for Lowell’s Bedlam: John McCullough

All acts of observation are partial and reveal as much about the observer as the observed.

Read the full article →

Lowell’s Bedlam: M G Stephens

by M G Stephens July 5, 2011 Poetry and Poetics
Thumbnail image for Lowell’s Bedlam: M G Stephens

Alfred Corn’s play gives us an inner portrait of Robert Lowell that is not found in either the biography or the poetry itself.

Read the full article →

Alfred Corn’s play Lowell’s Bedlam

by THEthe Poetry Blog Editors March 29, 2011 Poems of the Week

[April 7, London]

Read the full article →

Literary Movements: Insider as Outsider and Token Renegade

by Joe Weil December 29, 2010 Academia
Thumbnail image for Literary Movements: Insider as Outsider and Token Renegade

When gaining a foothold among the establishment, it is important the so called “outsiders” or mavericks have a figure fully anchored within the establishment who can be “acceptable.”

Read the full article →

Seventeen Years Ago Last March: Elizabeth Bishop’s Grand Finale

by Adam Fitzgerald March 6, 2010 Art
Thumbnail image for Seventeen Years Ago Last March: Elizabeth Bishop’s Grand Finale

‘Crusoe in England’ was first published in The New Yorker in 1971, then later collected in ‘Geography III,’ perhaps Bishop’s finest single volume of poems. (Only recently I discovered the title of which was suggested to her by John Ashbery. He had found a little geography textbook of the eponymous name, and sent it to her, thinking she’d rather enjoy it. Turns out, she did.)

Read the full article →

Blogging through Grossman, Part 3: Poetic Promiscuity.

by Micah Towery March 2, 2010 Art
Thumbnail image for Blogging through Grossman, Part 3: Poetic Promiscuity.

We recent poets have two great tools at our disposal: freedom of poetic license, and freedom of publishing. Generally, we can say whatever we want, and get a significant number of people to hear what we have to say. The question is whether this freedom has led to better poetry or degeneration. Perhaps that’s not the best way to put it. The question should be, even if somebody is doing something amazing and new in poetry, would we even see it? Will we travel all this way to find that we really did need the gatekeepers of poetry??

Read the full article →

Some Books on My Mind, or {Potential} Purchases of Imperishables

by Adam Fitzgerald February 21, 2010 Art
Thumbnail image for Some Books on My Mind, or {Potential} Purchases of Imperishables

Hands up, anyone who has read the whole of Herodotus and the whole of Thucydides! And Saint-Simon? And Cardinal de Retz? But even the great nineteenth-century cycles of novels are more often talked about than read.

Read the full article →