I’ve held off reading the last few poems in Jack Gilbert’s latest (The Dance Most of All) for months. Literally. Gilbert is one of those rare touchstone authors I was just ruminating about...

Reading through this year’s Best American Poetry volume, it’s clear that Wagoner doesn’t shy away from the kind of meta-poems– poems about poems, poems about writing, poems about the language of poems and stories– I remain suspicious of. He also has a...

So that’s what the post-avant poets are doing—engaging in “cognitive poetics?” If, as I do on good days, those poets are being intellectually honest, then Travis Nichols’ article makes sense. An excerpt: Memory–and the wonder and terror it...

Continuing my meandering through the Best American Poetry 2009 (and my seat of the pants "analysis") brings me to "Zones" by Albert Goldbarth. Goldbarth’s an erudite poet who’s been growing on me over the past few years. A platinum member of the...

The first poem from Best American Poetry 2009 that struck my fancy was Bruce Bond’s entry: "Ringtone" As they loaded the dead onto the gurneys to wheel them from the university halls, who could have predicted the startled chirping ...

As an enthusiastic snail-mail letter writer—you might remember those paper things, physically transported in little paper sleeves with “stamps” on them– Thomas Mallon’s new book Yours Ever: People and Their Letters looks fascinating (as does...