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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“Summer,” by Celeste Pepitone-Nahas
What can anyone say is contained in containers? In a plastic bag? In the image of a man who’s merely identified as a “composer”? In America? Like the whole country of America should be looked at as just a container. Like a backyard with statues in it. But if that’s the image associated with America,…
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“Althea,” by Molly Ledbetter
What would life would be like if you were in the middle of a Grateful Dead song. Or you were moving a lot, and you suddenly realized there’s a lot of life that passed, and you’ve been moving so much you may or may not have noticed that. And you’re doing an art of moving,…
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“Central Oregon,” by Patty Nash
I have to admit, I read Patty Nash‘s “Central Oregon” while I was reading Laynie Browne’s book, Translation of the Lilies Back Into Lists, so I was attuned to lists. I was aware that a list doesn’t just have to be items, but it can be playing with items. Like in Browne’s book, where the…