Come back often to this poem by Alicia E. Stallings. Not sure why, but, man

Kay Ryan

I love the close observations and imaginative leaps in the poetry of Norman MacCaig, one of the poets I re-read most often. This is from his Collected, titled The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon, 2009).

A couple of my favourite Norman MacCaig images from 1967 - they're from two Assynt pieces in his Collected Poems that don't appear in his Selected ('Now and for ever' then 'Windy day in March'). He told an interviewer he had 'a greedy and guzzling eye'. :)

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, one doesn’t study poets! You read them, and think, That’s marvelous, how is it done, could I do it? and that’s how you learn.” —Philip Larkin buff.ly/V16OYtp

This week's Rattlecast prompt was to write a self-portait as an "odd bird." I wrote a tetrameter sonnet after this guy. Next week: Write a poem set in a garden you’ve only been to once before and include a metaphor.

Happy Heavenly Birthday to beloved teacher and friend, Michael Donaghy. Here’s one of my favourites of his that I like to post on his birthday. Miss you, Mikey.

These lines have been taken from Heaney’s dear friend and fellow poet, Michael Longley’s review of his first collection, Death of a Naturalist. The article was published #OnThisDay in 1966. #SeamusHeaney #NLI #MichaelLongley #ListenNowAgain

I caught this cute little baby snake on my hike today. He has an important message for you.

Louise Glück

“You will love again the stranger who was your self.”  — Derek Walcott . . . This poem appeared in Collected Poems 1948-1984 by Derek Walcott, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986. Shared here with profound gratitude.

This poem, 'John Clare Reaches the Pacific,' is very dear to my heart and I'm thrilled to see it in print in the summer issue of Nimrod Journal thanks to Boris Dralyuk. I wrote it on an Amtrak from Portland to LA in September 2022, from which I really did see a lot of pelicans.

Cian McCarthy Whobeganit. "I'll give you whobeganit!" I thought it was a kind of bird. The Hoobee Gannet. Timebeing. "This will do for the time being." I thought it was a kind of bean. The Timebean.

DENISE LEVERTOV Breathing the Water ⁦New Directions⁩ This reminds me of Lee’s statement below. On one hand, the stream of images free of argument— just what is. The second half, erotic attention, meditative “telling and telling.” Water as paradigm of being’s difference.

Yesterday I participated in a memorial event at The Huntington for Robert Mezey (1935-2025), whose co-translations, with Dick Barnes, of Borges’s poems are unmatched—and, so far, uncollected. Lapidary is the word. Watch the syntax fall softly and pool at the ends of the stanzas.

Robert Frost, "Desert Places" #poetry

Less a guard dog than an avant-garde dog

CAROLINE BIRD The Air Year ⁦Carcanet Press⁩ The pulse of a poem line by line animates embodied voices (plural). Strong lines have a life of their own. Getting them right then arranging them can be anxious business. To bring “the deadness” alive took imagination and tact. Bravo!

Richard Wilbur Your voice, with clear location of June days, Called me outside the window. You were there, Light yet composed, as in the just soft stare Of uncontested summer all things raise Plainly their seeming into seamless air. poets.org/poem/june-light

SEAMUS HEANEY Some lyrics achieve a canonical status by simply exploring in a seemingly relaxed way the “ladder of lyric.” SH discovers in everyday language and process/progress the rungs of attention leading to “understanding.” The “O” of utter attention focuses the facts. Eros!