Table of Contents (with the subject headers)

This is a list of the posts (excluding posts concerning blog matters and such). The longer posts and essays are listed separately by title. The shorter posts that engage poems (or other texts) are given in reverse order of posting, listed by the subject header that leads off each post, the poem title, and then author.

Formatting note: not all browsers (e.g., the occasional ipad browswer) support reversed list numbering yet, so the numbers may appear to ascend rather than descend.

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Long Posts and Essays (alphabetical)
 

1. § • 30 more things to say from matt haig, so let's talk about grammar
2. § • but you don't have to call me johnson: taking a run at the words poetry, poem, and poet
3. § • notes on the idea of organicism — part i: coleridge
4. § • notes on the idea of organicism — part ii
5. § • the optimistic literary elitist • a response to "30 things to tell a book snob" by Matt Haig
6. § • poetry in the u.s.: a response to "Poetry Slam" • "Poetry Slam: Or, The Decline of American Poetry" by Mark Edmundson
7. § • #poppoetry: the unsurprising culture of poetry in the u.s., part i. introduction: that which should be assumed
8. § • #poppoetry: the unsurprising culture of poetry in the u.s., part ii. emotionality, authority, and morality
9. § • #poppoetry: the unsurprising culture of poetry in the u.s., part iii. the poem and the replies: structure and ideation first half
10. § • #poppoetry: the unsurprising culture of poetry in the u.s., part iii. the poem and the replies: structure and ideation second half
11. § • #poppoetry: the unsurprising culture of poetry in the u.s., part iv. summation, conclusion, and the inevitable j'accuse

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Repeating and Thematic Posts
 

poetry that writers of poetry have no excuse not reading

• § • Parts 1 and 2
• § • Part 3

 

aphorisms on the creative endeavor

• § • I. nos. 21-25

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Poetry Exploration Posts (in reverse order of posting)
 

1. § • the proof is in the reading •
   "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls" • E.E. Cummings
2. § • unity and effect •
   "Jesus on a Train from Mumbai" • Suzanne Batty
3. § • an engagement •
   Strunk and White
4. § • just because it looks like poetry, doesn't mean it's poetry •
   The Willow Grove • Laurie Sheck
5. § • non-sequiturs and the composition •
   "Moon" • Freda Downie
6. § • the poetic line •
   Life in the Cereal Aisle
7. § • bad verse is bad verse •
   "The Hill We Climb" • Amanda Gorman
8. § • verse vs. poetry •
   The New Poetic • C.K. Stead
9. § • two somethings worth two moments' thought •
   "A Bushel and a Peck" • Frank Loesser and Doris Day
10. § • a reading of poetic eroticism •
    "Orgy" • Muriel Rukeyser
11. § • shape: what works and what doesn't •
    "Narrow Flame" • Linda Gregerson
12. § • after closer reading . . . . •
    "Black Locusts" • Cameron Barnett
13. § • on the transportive quality of poetry •
    "On Poetry" • Ai Weiwei
14. § • the contextual nature of meter in English •
    "The Circus Animals' Desertion" • W.B. Yeats
15. § • a reading •
    "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" • W.H. Auden
16. § • a note on difficulty •
    The Sea and the Mirror • W.H. Auden
17. § • an exploration post •
    "Taxing the Rain" • Penelope Shuttle
18. § • some of Eliot's own line periods •
    "The Hollow Men" • T.S. Eliot
19. § • the line period •
    Tamburlaine the Great, Part I • Christopher Marlowe
20. § • the erotic and the merely sexual •
    "the mind is its own beautiful prisoner" • E.E. Cummings
21. § • another example of the difference between the poetic and prosaic modalities •
    "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" • Wallace Stevens; "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" • Adrienne Rich
22. § • demonstrating the difference between the prosaic and poetic modes •
    "Patterns" • Amy Lowell; "Garden" • H.D.
23. § • playing with composition and a note on ornament •
    Drinking to do
24. § • similes, and metaphoricity •
    "Year of the Cat" • Al Stewart
25. § • a note on confidence •
    Wivenhoe Park • John Constable
26. § • review: poetry magazine (oct. 2015) – part ix – crash davis vs. the zombies •
    The Grand Finale
27. § • review: poetry magazine (oct. 2015) – part viii – more on moments, less on wholes •
    "Frequently Asked Questions: 10" • Camille T. Dungy; "Evanescent Hesse," "Thor and Saturn's Tête-à-tête," "The Mad Man from Macon" • Maceo J. Whitaker; "Vert" • Catherine Staples; "Salad Days" • Thomás Q. Morín; "Donut" • Julian Stannard; "Green Permanent" • Jessica Greenbaum; "A Horse Named Never" • Jennifer Chang; "Arrhythmia" • Hailey Leithauser; "What Is a Grackle?," "Advice from the Grackle" • Susan Elizabeth Howe
28. § • review: poetry magazine (oct. 2015) – part vii – facts, fragments, and realism •
    "Listening to Townes Van Zandt" • Christine Gosnay; Claudia Emerson; "Arcadia" • James Longenbach
29. § • review: poetry magazine (oct. 2015) – part vi – fragments and amalgams, similes and metaphors, and a bit on confidence •
    "Florida," "Almost" • Matt Hart; from "Dark Honey" • Reginald Gibbons
30. § • review: poetry magazine (oct. 2015) – part v – list verse; more on pop-formatting; and defenses of texts •
    "The Friend" • Matt Hart
31. § • review: poetry magazine (oct. 2015) – part iv – the shape of verse and pop-poetic convention •
    "Background Information" • Rae Armantrout; "Object Lesson" • Rae Armantrout; "Midnight Office" • Cynthia Cruz
32. § • review: poetry magazine (oct. 2015) – part iii – pop-poetic convention and clothesline verse •
    "Let the Light Stand" • Corey Mesler; "Autobiographical Fragment," "A Citizen" • Katie Peterson; "Asymmetries" • Rae Armantrout
33. § • review: poetry magazine (oct. 2015) – part ii – breaking lines vs. writing lines •
    "Nailing Wings to the Dead" • Eleanor Hooker; "The Raising of Lazarus" • Franz Wright
34. § • review: poetry magazine (oct. 2015) – part i •
    "Five Yellow Roses," "Dialogue with an Artist" • Matthew Sweeney;
35. § • the intellect and the internet •
    an FB comment •
36. § • the question of merit •
    "Song" • Laetitia Landon
37. § • demonstration of poetic form •
    "Cold Tea Blues" • Cowboy Junkies
38. § • the action of the prosaic and the poetic •
    "My Brother's Insomnia" • Tony Eric Pankey
39. § • returning to the definition of poetry •
    "Bible Study" • Tony Hoagland
40. § • an object lesson in brilliance •
    "Let It Go" from Frozen
41. § • an exercise in deep reading •
    Sam Coleridge Goes to the Superbowl
42. § • line construction, and sham or genuine poetics •
    "Journey of the Magi" • T.S. Eliot
43. § • a question of confidence; an issue of strength •
    My Life • Lyn Hejinian
44. § • it takes two to tango •
    "Metzengerstein" • Edgar Allen Poe
45. § • an exploration of poetic structure •
    "Pelicans in December" • J. Allyn Rosser
46. § • poetic structure: aesthetic ideation vs. brute factuality •
    "Mariana" • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
47. § • exploring the poetic-prosaic axis through example •
    A Burial at Thebes and "Hercules and Antaeus" • Seamus Heaney
48. § • correcting some problems in an earlier post — a theoretic exploration •
    Poetic Diction • Owen Barfield
49. § • reading selectively and reading collectively — another demonstration that reading well means close reading •
    "My God, It's Full of Stars" and Life on Mars • Tracy K. Smith
50. § • an exploration post •
    "A Way" • Rosanna Warren
51. § • verse or prose, poetic or prosaic •
    "Hymn to Life" • Timothy Donnelly
52. § • a shared bibliography •
    Poetic Diction • Owen Barfield
53. § • structure and organic unity •
    Sonnet 128 • William Shakespeare
54. § • why the basics are so important (at least, to me) •
    "Rain of Statues" • Sarah Lindsey
55. § • ekphrastic poetry and ideational strength •
    "Modigliani's Cellist" • Barbara Siegel Carlson
56. § • an exploration of measure and musical phrasing •
57. § • the aural effects of poetic grammar •
    The Ticket That Exploded (excerpt) • William S. Burroughs
58. § • the importance of knowledge to creating •
    The Waste Land (first stanza) • T.S. Eliot
59. § • shifts in subject (with a footnote on rhythm) •
    "One Little Good Thing About It" • Patricia Smith
60. § • exploring structure •
    "Congenital" • Amy McCann
61. § • Bocola on Modernism and the "primitive," and Cassirer on theoretical and mythical thinking •
    "Ars Poetica" • Archibald MacLeish
62. § • exploring a poem (organic form and pop conventionality) •
    "Sleeping Women in Movies" • Janet McCann
63. § • reading typography •
    "Gymnopédia No.3" • Adrian Matejka
64. § • when you no longer care about literature, it's hard to show you care about literature •
    "Academe Quits Me" (a blog post) • D.G. Myers
65. § • appreciation; alternatively, forcing the poem for an easy audience •
    "Slight Pause" • Joy Katz
66. § • the very important importance of lines •
    "Confession" • Carrie Shipers • "When Fruit and Flowers Hung Thick Falling" • Katie Peterson
67. § • god lies in the details •
    "Epic" • Ange Mlinko
68. § • more is not better; ergo, the few are not the best •
    "Epic" • Ange Mlinko
69. § • Two Thoughts (and a Note) on the Poetic After Having Barely Started to Read Charles O. Hartman's Free Verse: An Essay on Prosody
70. § • the very important importance of lines •
    "Rocket" • Todd Boss
71. § • the structure of the content •
    "Lost Cilization" • Henry Hart
72. § • creative writing versus reportage and description (and the "mayonnaise jar" trope) •
    "Lo Mein" • August Kleinzahler
73. § • wording and context, and poetic gameplay •
    "Bad Sheep" • Hailey Leithauser
74. § • asking the question: "why should I read this?" •
    "A Fold in Time" • Ann Lauterbach
75. § • explorations in punctuation and ideation •
    "The Mind After Everything Has Happened" • Rowan Ricardo Phillips
76. § • asking why? and not just what? •
    "How to Make Love in the Garden of Good and Evil" • Lo Kwa Mei-en
77. § • six months in: a need to step back, and robinson jeffers • time for a pause
78. § • the phantasy of the aesthetic •
    "Yellow Goblins" • Fanny Howe
79. § • awwww, out of the mouth of poetastry, the relationship of mimetic representation and convention •
    "Mimesis" • Fady Joudah
80. § • a bar for poetic ability? •
    "Nimium Minus Solus Quam Solus" • Daryl Hine
81. § • the play between the poetic line and its internal structure •
    "Weight Gain" • Moira Egan
82. § • grammar snobbery again (and the weirdest pocoyo ever) •
    Stephen Fry
83. § • a note on the grammar inherent to a poem • "Our Lady of Ash Wednesday" • Joe Hall
84. § • the good of sound and form; the bad of ideation •
    "We Come Elemental" • Tamiko Beyer
85. § • exploring poetry while playing around with the poems •
    Two Poems • Tom Hennen
86. § • meticulous wording: another exercise in close reading •
    "Space Junk" • Lisa Olstein
87. § • text and form: an exploration of organic vs. conventional nature •
    "Never the Twain" • Partridge Boswell
88. § • exploring "write what you know," the info dump, and other bits •
    "For the Next Task, I Turn From My Bench" • Matthew Nienow
89. § • another convention of pop poetry -- little pretties -- and ideational depth •
    "Bloodletting" • Alex Dimitrov
90. § • more on contemporary, poetic conventionality (but first, the ampersand) •
    "Demonstrated Melancholy" • Nate Pritts
91. § • the genre of contemporary poetry and anaphora •
    "All You Know" • Carol Ann Davis
92. § • the small poem (and a bit about the unexpectedly hackneyed) •
    "Ecstasy" • Jane Miller
93. § • abstraction and control •
    "The Other One" • Nadine Botha
94. § • accidental meter and rhyme •
    "Because There Is No Ending" • Pimone Triplett
95. § • exploring content and structure, and poetic laziness (with, first, a grammar/syntax point) •
    "Going Back to Bimble" • Maurice Manning
96. § • a bit about the process •
    "Dusk in the Ruins" • Ernest Hilbert
97. § • writing habits and not writing about yourself •
    "Canticle of Clouds" • Jennifer Atkinson
98. § • ideation, depth, and bombs •
    "Spook House" • Benjamin Myers
99. § • clothesline poetry and unity (with a bit about Surrealism) •
    "Risk Management Memo: Small Enterprise" • Mary Biddinger
100. § • abstraction and pretty emptiness •
     "Dominion Over the Larger Animal" • Sophie Cabot Black
101. § • an open(ed) letter to the so-called editors of Verse Daily •
     "Word All Over, Beautiful as Sky" • David Axelrod
102. § • sufficiency of content, and the organic whole •
     "Brief Study of Parades" • Jill Osier
103. § • playing with wording and ideation •
     "Here Be Monsters" • Katherine Coles
104. § • prose hiding behind line breaks •
     "Phlogiston Footage" • Nicky Beer
105. § • meter and meaning •
     Two Poems • Glyn Maxwell
106. § • the prose poem, and the distinction between poetry and prose •
     "Ms. and Super Pac Man" • M.J. Best
107. § • some general, exploratory questions •
     "Sister as Moving Object" • Jan Beatty
108. § • the stanza break, and difference and repetition •
     "To a Young Father" • Sidney Lea
109. § • narrative verse •
     "Northwest Passage" • James Pollock
110. § • a grammar note •
     "Insomniac Romance" • Lynn Levin
111. § • wording, metaphor, and the narrative "I" •
     "Elk Skeleton" • Amy Fleury
112. § • the poetic line •
     "Ode to the Artichoke" • translated by William Pitt Root
113. § • the masculine and feminine line •
     "[but the rain is rull of ghosts tonight]" • Dawn Lonsinger
114. § • when a text lies •
     "Solitude" • John Daniel
115. § • verse daily sloppiness •
     "Dear So & So" • Beth Marzoni
116. § • poetic unity, and internal contradiction •
     "Learning to Live With Stone" • Kelly Cherry
117. § • how grammar works within the poem's system •
     "The Bladder" • David Keplinger
118. § • poetic structure •
     "Wander" • Andrea Hollander
119. § • poetic structure •
     "What Befalls You" • Ethel Rackin
120. § • poetry as exploration of language •
     Three Poems • Anne Carson
121. § • line breaks •
     "Butterfly with Parachute" • Stephen Burt
122. § • the chorus •
     Three Poems • Ron Smith
123. § • the first line of the poem •
     "When Men Go Off to War" • Victoria Kelly
124. § • on multiple readings •
     "A Road in the Sky" • Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers
125. § • a moment on prosody •
     "Housebound" • Jacqueline Pope
126. § • superfluous words and poetic lines •
     "Elegy" • Jaswinder Bolina
127. § • unity, and energy •
     "Augenblick" • Mark Irwin
128. § • line breaks •
     Two Poems and "Ealuscerwen" • Charles Simic and Edward Mayes
129. § • the narrative "I" •
     "Tablet" • Chris Dombrowski
130. § • ekphrasis •
     "In Vitebsk There Lives a Cow" • Nuala Ní Chonchúir
131. § • prose poems and paragraph poems •
     "Times Like These: Marianna, Florida" • L. Lamar Wilson
132. § • close reading and aesthetic sophistication •
     "The Little Georgia Magnet" • R.T. Smith
133. § • meter and the poetic line •
     "Glass of Water and Coffee Pot" • Robin Robertson
134. § • poetic structure, and poetic grammar •
     "Necessity Defense of Institutional Memory" • Camille Rankine
135. § • narrative poetry, and poetry as "calculation" •
     "The Letters" • Jack Ridl
136. § • poetry and the dream; technique and the poetic whole •
     Three Poems • Sarah Arvio
137. § • lists •
     "A Moment" • Philip Schultz
138. § • center formatting •
     "The Caravaggio Room" • Ron Smith
139. § • lines and line breaks •
     "The Ruin" • Jacob Polley
140. § • line breaks and poetic structure •
     A Cup of Water Turns Into a Rose (excerpt) Lawrence Raab
141. § • free verse and the poetic ear (and grammar) •
     "Ars Poetica" • Natania Rosenfeld
142. § • ideation (and a note on the punchline poem) •
     "The Joy That Tends Toward Unbecoming" • Joseph Fasano
143. § • is there a bar in poetry publishing? •
     "Conversion Figure" • Mary Szibist
144. § • grammar and syntax too •
     "Bethany Man" • Ricardo Pau-Llosa
145. § • "perfection in miniature" •
     "Women Looking Up Into a Plum Tree" • Melanie McCabe
146. § • line breaks •
     "Eviction Notice" • Dan Gerber
147. § • the poetic ear (and line breaks) •
     "nostalgia&tm;" • Robert Hershon
148. § • close reading •
     "Geckos in Obscure Light" • William Logan
149. § • the emotion bomb •
     "The Horses Are Fighting" • Jill Osier
150. § • examining examining a poem •
     "The Evil Key" • Sinéad Morrisey
151. § • suddenly, no depth •
     "Five White Birds" • Catharine Savage Brosman
152. § • fortissimo! then not •
     "Salt Water Ducks" • Cleopatra Mathis
153. § • crafting little things •
     "Rapprochement" • Geoffrey Nutter
154. § • little things do count •
     "Q" • Michael McFee

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