Learning how to read art by way of “deep-looking” can lead to a more creative way of seeing that could be applied to a number of other areas of human endeavor, and maybe, even to a way of life.
Florencia Milito’s poem paints a sympathetic portrait of the complicated artist and his work as “a celestial housekeeper” whose mission was “to pleat the folds of sky” and “stitch its gems,” in lines that communicate tenderness and awe.
The careful balance S.J. Sloat strikes between elements of erasure and visual art in each poem reveals new depths upon multiple readings. The compressed lyrics sing of introspection and offer wisdom, and they are richly enhanced by the inspired variety and ingenuity of erasure modalities and concrete imagery.
Yona Harvey’s 'You Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love' is an astounding book that reminds us that we don’t have to undertake extraordinary measures for love or realization.
"When Fanny Lou Hamer said” champions the assertion of the most basic human and civil rights through means sanctioned by our Constitution: peaceful assembly and protest, voting, running for office, and the everyday radical acts of poetry, hope, and prayer.
Today’s is a love poem for everyone and a model for how to love expansively and wholly. It embraces us and loves us for who we are and what we do, and its range allows each of us to feel seen and recognized.
“The Hill We Climb” by Amanda Gorman is an example of an occasional poem that exceeded itself by happening to be the perfect message at the perfect time and place, delivered by the perfect messenger.
It will help, the poem seems to suggest, if we focus on family and the world of nature rather than the world of the human. Some aspects of that world are just too unbearable right now for a sustained gaze.
I wrote this poem to be included in a tribute volume for Marvin Bell, who died last month at 83. “Dead Woman Poem for Marvin Bell” honors him as an exceptional teacher of poetry and also purloins his invented form—what he called his Dead Man poems. —Susan Cohen
The poem is a love song both to my husband and to a city that I find endlessly fascinating and frustrating, and that I miss, especially in this travel-free year. —Chloe Martinez
Because this poem invites us to read it as metaphor, it was a short leap to consider the poem’s application to our country’s current political crisis, neither side really talking to the other, grievances swamping us like a ‘snowpocalypse.’
Another source of solace has been poetry; reading, studying, and writing it has been the heartbeat of my days. With that in mind, this week’s column will present some poetry for you: a selection of winter poems by Emily Dickinson