2nd Annual NAPOMO 30/30/30 :: DAY 13 :: JULIAN GALLO on JULIO CORTÁZAR
On Julio Cortázar’s “After the Party” Argentine author Julio Cortázar is not well known for his poetry. Primarily a novelist and short story writer, in his long literary career he had published only one poetry book, “Salvo el Crepúsculo.” That book
2nd Annual NAPOMO 30/30/30 :: DAY 12 :: Abigail Welhouse on Suzanne Gardinier
"'What defines the ghazal is a constant longing,'” Suzanne Gardinier writes in a letter to her friend, poet Agha Shahid Ali, written after his passing - a line of Ali's from years earlier. The traditional ghazal form follows strict meter and rhyme, and consists
2nd Annual NAPOMO 30/30/30 :: DAY 11 :: LEGACY RUSSELL ON RICHARD SIKEN
In 2005, I happened upon a copy of Richard Siken’s Crush while browsing at Saint Mark’s Bookshop in the East Village. Published that year as part of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, the venerable Louise Glück had written the foreword. Her first
2nd ANNUAL NAPOMO :: DAY 10 :: CHRISTOPHER MARTIN on STEPHANIE GRAY
Stephanie Gray & The Sound She wants to know how it sounds. The bunting at the bodega. The slow sudden closing of a neighborhood. What shut down to make way for more chains. She is listening to history on the radio.
2nd Annual NAPOMO 30/30/30 :: Day 9 :: Bibi Deitz on Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon
The first time I heard Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon read was at a writing residency at Bennington College in Vermont this past January. I was tipsy on whisky and came in from the cold laughing, carefree. Soon I was struck by the beauty
2nd ANNUAL NAPOMO 30/30/30 :: DAY 8 :: MONTANA RAY ON ALICE NOTLEY
Alice Notley. Alice Notley. Alice Notley is a miracle worker. That much we know is true. I heard --from Rachel Zucker-- she didn't care where she published. See: the tightly wound ball of rage that is "As Good as Anything." See here: "Written and judged
2nd ANNUAL 30/30/30 :: DAY 7 :: JOEL ALLEGRETTI ON LEONARD COHEN
The famous doctor held up Grandma’s stomach. Cancer! Cancer! he cried out. “I Wanted to Be a Doctor" * The pain-monger came home from a hard day’s torture. “The Failure of a Secular Life” * For you I will be an apostate jew and
2nd ANNUAL NAPOMO 30/30/30 :: DAY 6 :: UCHE NDUKA on FRIEDERIKE MAYROCKER
The poems of Friederike Mayrocker are instances of suspense of a peculiar sort. They luxuriate in thematic and stylistic instability. She handles the unknowability inherent in life with both delicacy and daring. She can be deeply accessible and edgily
2nd ANNUAL NAPOMO 30/30/30 :: DAY 5 :: ANDRE BAGOO IN DEFENSE OF DH LAWRENCE
IT UNCOILS itself slowly. Only after a good few years do you realise that D.H. Lawrence’s great poem ‘Snake’ has never quite left you – first read so innocently in a childhood bedroom housed under the strange-scented shade of a
2nd ANNUAL NAPOMO 30/30/30 :: DAY 4 :: FARZANA MARIE ON MIKHAIL, CARPENTER, AZZIZADA and POETRY IN SOCIAL CONFLICT
How does poetry grapple with the conflicts and social issues of our time? What can a poem do in the face of rocket-thuds, choking smoke, a child’s pink sandal in a blood-pool on the street? Can it find meaning in
