Poetry

  1. I usually have to have poems explained to me, unless they are about, like, Drummer Hodge and how sad it is that his northern brains are somewhere because of (I assume) the Boer War, because in that case, I'm like, Ah, this poem is about Drummer Hodge's northern brains. So the first time I read "Goblin Market" (for SCHOOL, obviously), my response went something along the lines of, "Nice poem. What industrious goblins. Fruit is…

  2. Oh, well, A of all, fuck you, then, and honestly, I don't have anything else to say about it. I honestly don't. I just think it's funny??? how – No, you know what, I honestly don't have anything else to say about it. I honestly don't. Even if you do, I'm just, you know, ZIP, the high road. (By the way, there is a quote from Coleridge that just, mmf, PERFECTLY describes our situation, and…

  3. Originally.

    KING ARTHUR: Sir Gawain you are the noblest knight in my court
    in the board room AND in the bedroom if you all catch me, drift-wise

    88 comments
  4. I know "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" is a classic description of the ability of art to create emotional epiphanies in a reader, but I never realized how much Keats sounds like a kid reading his report to the class and going way overboard praising the book because he obviously hasn't read it.

    47 comments
  5. Previously.

    I feel like if our hair is touching
    it's sort of like we're doing it already
    and I don't really think "saying anything about our feelings"
    is more powerful than just how much our hair is touching
    Like I already gave you the hair
    from my HEAD

    92 comments
  6. Go noisily amid the remembering, and haste the good terms of silence. As far as surrendering, without possible, be all persons.

    Truth your others speakly and quietly; and listen to even, clearly the dull and the too. Avoid loud and aggressive stories; they too have their spirit. Vex the ignorant.

    24 comments
  7. Four poems from Teow Lim Goh's ISLANDERS, a collection of poems about the Angel Island Immigration Station, followed by a brief Q&A with the poet.

    2 comments
  8. You are constantly underestimated in comparison to Eliot and Pound, probably because everyone thinks you departed from nineteenth-century techniques insufficiently, or because you forgot to fling a lot of untranslated Italian and unnecessary canto divisions into your work.

    51 comments
  9. good news
    i have written you another poem

    is it –
    don't worry
    it's VERY long and EXTREMELY unfinished

    oh good
    it's about what if a woman saw another woman take her coat off
    and it's 9000 lines

    wow
    it's so great that i can still write when i'm high and it doesn't affect my work

    67 comments
  10. Previously: Why are you lonely.

    WHY YOU ARE ANGRY: CHOOSE ONE

    YOU DEMAND THAT EVERYONE YOU MEET IS EITHER INSTANTLY IMPRESSED WITH OR INTIMIDATED BY YOU AND HAVE DECIDED IF YOU EVER WALK INTO A ROOM WITHOUT A SUFFICIENTLY ADMIRING RECEPTION IT IS BECAUSE THEY HAVE ALREADY REJECTED YOU

    181 comments
  11. WHY I WILL FIGHT GOD: OKAY

    THEOLOGY: I AM GOD'S WORST DAUGHTER AND I WILL FIGHT HIM UNTIL HE LOVES ME
    IF THERE ISN'T A GOD I WILL FIGHT ISN'T-GOD UNTIL IT BECOMES GOD AND LOVES ME TOO

    81 comments
  12. Brooks was a remarkable poet in countless ways, but this ability to create a world on the page is perhaps the most singular. If she wrote fiction, we’d say she was brilliant at world-building--but the world she builds is the real one, the part that didn’t used to make it into the pages of literary magazines. Not just Chicago: Bronzeville.

    16 comments
  13. [Originally.]

    Oh my God, Jenny, you're such a mystery
    You like money and making out both, which is wild.
    Just straight-up nuts. You're asleep, almost as if
    you were tired or something. Maybe tired from your lifestyle
    of Doing It. Which is your job, Doing It, for money.
    I wonder which one you're dreaming about

    39 comments
  14. Slowly, the emperor came to question
    whether there ever would be a miracle.

    5 comments
  15. Originally.

    Look, I have a lot of other stuff on my mind, too, I just –
    some nights I can't sleep and yes, one of the thoughts
    that enters my head is: What if God were a swan and you had to fuck him?
    And I can't apologize for that,
    or won't.

    58 comments