There’s a certain satisfaction in writing to order. Here’s my first attempt at a “ghazal,” a form that is variously attributed to Arabic poetry, or Persian, or Urdu literature, depending on what reference source you look at. I can’t even … Continue reading →
If song lyrics are a kind of literature, then the Nobel Prize Committee is right. Bob Dylan is a Nobel Prize quality songwriter. Frankly, measured against living American writers in any genre, whose voice has had a bigger impact? Novelist … Continue reading →
October is an exciting month Winds blow in, frontal waves wash in and out, skies dramatically darken. Then the next day, or the next hour, a silent sky twirls beneath a clear blue bowl, an umbrella of light, in which … Continue reading →
Food is almost too easy a subject. Everybody has something to say about food. Some people never stop talking about it. Sometimes we realize we’ve become those people ourselves. ‘And the food? You can’t believe the food.‘ It’s our definition … Continue reading →
I had a professor, and a very good one, who once spoke about “the poetry of the ineffable.” That’s a word for what’s all around us but cannot be easily named or defined, if at all. Common as the air … Continue reading →
There are many mysteries among the poems that delighted me in July’s Verse-Virtual (http://www.verse-virtual.com/poems-and-articles.html). Michael Minassian’s poem “The Fortune Teller” reads like a deep parable with too many possible meanings for any of us to sort out simply. It features … Continue reading →
My poems about Greece are up on Verse-Virtual.com, the online journal that publishes a big batch of new poems every month.Here’s the link for the poems: http://www.verse-virtual.com/robert-knox-2016-july.html Greece is both a country with an ancient civilization and, judging by our … Continue reading →
Among the many notable poems in July’s Verse-Virtual.com, the online poetry journal, John Allman’s urbane postmortem on a bizarre historical-poetic footnote, “On the Removal of Whitman’s Brain,” tapped me on the shoulder and commanded attention. According to Allman’s note on … Continue reading →
As the month advances I discover more poetic flowers blooming in the May’s Verse-Virtual.com, the online poetry journal: The poetry of great truths in J.C. Elkin’s moving and formally appealing poem “Keening for Eve” found in lines such as: “…if … Continue reading →
April was National Poetry Month, a nice designation but nothing near the impact of a national holiday. Emily Dickinson’s birthday maybe? Or Walt Whitman’s? Still, poets get excited about it in sort of busman’s holiday way. Let’s write more … Continue reading →