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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“Poem Written Under a Pseudonym,” by Daniel Borzutzky
At last, the problem with American poetry is an American poet performing the part of his own poet-ness, and another poet he’s been plagiarizing from all this time, and another poet who likes grocery shopping more than poetry, and people who like reading poetry are like, “Is that a contradiction?” Then they go to a…
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“Endnotes,” by Coleman Edward Dues
What a challenge for poetry to communicate simultaneity. To enact “while,” like maybe “while” “will have been being” “while” another thing will have been happening “while” another thing and so on. I have been reading a series of very exciting poems by Coleman Edward Dues. Or more accurately I wish I could experience each of…
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“Poisonwell Diaries: Psalms of the Ossuary,” by Shanta Lee
Accretion is a helpful term reading a poem like Lee’s Poisonwell Diaries: Psalms of the Ossuary. Just to keep track of Lee’s body in this poem—it’s everywhere. Her body is being told what it is by someone who may or may not have a vested interest in understanding who she is. But their proximity to…