This poem is endless, the odds against us are endless,our chances of being alive togetherstatistically nonexistent;still we have made it – from Lisel Mueller’s “Alive Together” April is National Poetry Month, so I wanted to squeeze in this review this…
Tag: poetry
My wife recently asked me why I like poetry. There are three reasons, and all of them are also the same reasons that I like music: MOOD. I like the way the poem/song sounds, or makes me feel. I may…
My first exposure to Frank O’Hara’s poetry was on season two of Mad Men. Don Draper mails a book of poems to someone, and over the scene Jon Hamm’s smoky gravel recites a few lines from “Mayakovsky”: Now I am…
Poetry is something that a lot of us probably want to like, but we just can’t quite get there. Poets either write too much about flowers, or the writing is so opaque and pretentious that it’s pointless to try and decipher….
The two places that I learn about poetry are my local library and Half-Price Books. For free, I can browse the poetry section and choose colorful hardcovers and well-worn paperbacks. If the book isn’t for me, it’s no loss. If it…
When I hit my formative years, I believe Rollins was mostly in his spoken word phase. I didn’t know anything about Rollins Band or Black Flag yet – I just saw this shirtless old man on mtv, shredded and screaming…
Reading Pomes All Sizes feels like watching Birdman or Whiplash. It’s drunk, jubilant, sweaty. The collection is manic, exhilarating, confusing, fun, heartbeating, a little sad. You’ll find friend poems, wine poems, God and Buddha poems, and a few poems about…
In honor of National Poetry Month, I am reading and review books of poetry. Last week, I read fellow Austinite Michael Gilmore’s Restless Astronomy. This week, I am reviewing Billy Collins’ Picnic Lightning. The book came out in 1998, but…
