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In Praise of Autodidacticism
Photo by Sylvain Pedneault I was born and raised in a town that recently ranked as the worst place in the nation to live, due to unemployment. My father relocated to the Imperial Valley of California...
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The Power and Peril of Written Words
I believe that it is important to intelligently question the modern relevance of our ancestors’ words. It is as important to literature as it is to government. The Second Amendment to the US...
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10 Transcontinental Poets for 2013
The Internet gives us the illusion that the best a culture has to offer will invariably find its way to us. But when it comes to art, I find that so much still comes down to local knowledge. Americans...
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Why Sharon Olds?
“You must revise your life.” -Wiliam Stafford The audience at the T.S. Eliot Shortlist Reading were the real winners. They were treated to Gillian Clarke’s quiet tenderness, like a swan navigating a...
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21 Most-Mentioned Poets
As the year comes to a close, I find myself in a reflective mood. Having compiled a list of the more than 350 poets I have mentioned on my website since I began writing about poetry in 2003, I was...
View ArticleSo Long, Mannahatta!
“New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town! / The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down.” -“On The Town”, sung by Frank Sinatra So a book tour that began in the medieval English village of Much Wenlock...
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The (Poetry) Doctor Is In (Hertfordshire)
The chill of autumn brings the start of a new school year, and the beginning of a new venture for me. I am pleased to offer “poetry surgeries” through the UK Poetry Society for the Hertfordshire area....
View ArticleWhy Poetry Workshops Matter
The following reflections appeared in the recent print edition of the Ver Poets newsletter. “Revision is not cleaning up after the party; revision is the party.” -Source unknown “Sometimes the best...
View ArticleJanuary Poetry Surgeries in St. Albans, Hertfordshire
Following on from last year’s success, I will again be offering a limited number of one-to-one “Poetry Surgeries” through the UK Poetry Society in St. Albans, Hertfordshire on Sunday, January 31st....
View ArticleYoung Student Filmmakers Respond to “Buttons”
I received an email the other day that delighted me. A teacher in the UK found “Buttons” online and use it, and the accompanying storybook, to teach both poetry and filmmaking to her year six students....
View ArticleHow to be a Poet
I received my contributor’s copy of what I suspect will be a very important book — for me, surely — and perhaps for others. How to be a Poet strikes me as not only “a twenty-first century guide to...
View ArticleJuly Poetry Surgeries in St. Albans, Hertfordshire
I will again be offering a limited number of one-to-one “Poetry Surgeries” through the UK Poetry Society on Sunday, July 22nd. These one-hour sessions take place in a central location in St. Albans,...
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