I take great pleasure in pursuing spectacular poems. And given how much poetry is being published at this point, this is not not an easy task. So much good work is being published! So aside from looking for work by the poets I admire, I look for editors with great taste. Or magazines and presses who consistently rely on editors with great taste.
These are some of the poems I’ve found that are spectacular! Or I think they are, at least.
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“FOR THOSE ABT TO ROCK, WE SALUTE YOU,” by Cody-Rose Clevidence
Full disclosure, I am beholden to Cody-Rose Clevidence. Like when you hear a baby go “Gaga,” and you hear the grown-up close by say, “Gaga” back. I’m both those voices. I’m a recording of those voices you look at on your phone the year after they were saying “Gaga” to each other. Is this a…
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“America Will Be,” by Joshua Bennett
I just finished writing a goodreads.com review for Bennett’s second book, Owed, and I wanted to call some attention to the book’s last poem, “America Will Be.” I have always been fascinated by the political poem. Not least because during the mid-2000s there were so many conversations about bringing politics into poetry. And those conversations felt especially awkward…
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“Pilsen,” by Colleen Louise Barry
What is an “inarticulable feeling”? Like the one in Colleen Louise Barry’s poem “Pilsen.” Is it possible to relate this feeling to beauty? Which Barry seems interested in doing. Or maybe she doesn’t. Or maybe she’s going to propose a more smudgy relationship between beauty and this feeling. I guess partly because beauty is often…