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My Poem in Anthology MEASURE FOR MEASURE

I’m absolutely thrilled to have my poem “Sapphics with Little Rags and Cabbage” appear in the new anthology edited by Annie Finch and Alexandra Oliver, Measure for Measure. Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2015, the collection is a wonderful way to study the fine points of meter through examples. Annie and Alexandra have organized it by metrical type and added notes on the different meter, which should make it a great way to learn…

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Emerson formal verse poetry Uncategorized

On Reading Emerson

My thoughts on reading Emerson: his lectures and essays are more poetic than his poems. In prose he flows, but in his poems, he hews to a formal standard that makes his writing stiff, even self-conscious, while he’s relaxed and exuberantly expressive in the essays. Too bad free verse didn’t come along earlier so Emerson could use that expressive vehicle. And no wonder he admired the daring breakout of Whitman’s poetry! “Commodity” is the essay…

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