Poets face certain dilemmas—how and to what ends is time spent, endured; what to do with (about) history, violence, aesthetics; via which operations might social life and inner life be accurately, meaningfully conveyed; is anybody out there, really. This poem gathers and loosely organizes such inquiries, equally trivial and monumental, to ask: is the poem a reminder of paradise?
Hannah Brooks-Motl on "Poet Dilemma" |
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"On Hala Alyan’s The Moon That Turns You Back"
"The book cycles through multiple themes, but two keep returning: Alyan’s devastating experiences of lost pregnancies (she has experienced miscarriages and the horror of an ectopic pregnancy) and the loss of her beloved maternal grandmother, Fatima, a frequent figure in her writing. Loss is figured throughout via various forms of redaction, including the literal obliteration of words."
viaLOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Ariana Benson on "Dear Moses Grandy, ...Love, The Great Dismal Swamp"
"The first time the land spoke to me through poetry, its message arrived in the form of a letter, not addressed to me, but from one lover to another. In “Dear Moses Grandy, …Love, the Great Dismal Swamp,” the murky, forested, ever-shrinking land of Southeastern Virginia (that was the backdrop of much of my childhood) writes to and commemorates her first lover: Moses Grandy, an enslaved man, who, in his single-person boat and with his rustic, handmade tools, carved canals out of the murk and morass that had scared many intrepid explorers away for good." |
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