‘The missing’ at bath magg

‘If there is snow outside then it follows
there must be a character outside in the snow‘

Issue 11 of bath magg is live, and I am delighted that it includes my poem ‘The missing’ .

Many thanks to editors Mariah Whelan, Joe Carrick-Varty, and Gboyega Odubanjo.

You can read the poem here: ‘The missing‘.

‘Circle (tarot)’ at The Interpreter’s House

“After the fistfight which was more of a scuffle — a circle /
of kids around us chanting fight when it wasn’t“

The Interpreter’s House issue 79 is now live. I’m delighted the issue contains my poem ‘Circle (tarot)’.

Many thanks to editors Georgi Gill and Louise Peterkin.

You can read the poem here: Circle (tarot).

‘Broken (interaction)’ at Cordite Poetry Review

“It happened in the sand dunes, so I’m told. I don’t remember.“

Cordite Poetry Review issue 108 is now live. The issue has the theme of Dedication, and it contains my poem ‘Broken (interaction)’.

Many thanks to editors Lou Garcia-Dolnik, Luke Patterson, and Kent MacCarter!

You can read the poem here: ‘Broken (interaction)‘

Robert Lowell on the raw and the cooked

Two poetries are now competing, a cooked and a raw. The cooked, marvelously expert, often seems laboriously concocted to be tasted and digested by a graduate seminar. The raw, huge blood-dripping gobbets of unseasoned experience are dished up for midnight listeners. There is a poetry that can only be studied, and a poetry that can only be declaimed, a poetry of pedantry, and a poetry of scandal. I exaggerate, of course.

— Robert Lowell, National Book Award acceptance speech, November 1960

The award was for Life Studies.

Mary Ruefle on re-reading books

Rail: Before I turned on the tape for this interview, you were talking about your personal library and how you are at a stage in your life where your desire to re-read certain texts means you will not have time to read new things. I think of the final two lines of “Thirteen”: “I read three thousand books, / and then I died.”

Ruefle: I recently unpacked 17 boxes of books that I haven’t seen in 22 years. Many of the books were texts I first read in college. I thought I would easily be able to get rid of them. I found myself extremely attached to them. An example would be my old Penguin edition of Ulysses. I know I will never read it again because I don’t have time but I couldn’t part from it. I realized that my wanting to re-read so many of these books again was actually a desire to live my life all over again.

— Mary Ruefle, interview in The Brooklyn Rail,  July 2014