The Writing Path Blog

Another stunning new zine that just launched is Mezzocammin, a journal devoted to new formal poetry by women, especially contemporary women poets. In the first issue, I found one of my favorite formalistas, the amazing, aptly named Kate Light. The editors also plan a women poets timeline, which they describe this way: We will also, starting in our December issue, be featuring a women poets timeline, known as “The Timeline Project,” which will eventually be…

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What is it about spring 2006? Several new online litmags edited by women poets have launched spectacularly recently. One of my favorites has a name that just sounds like fun: zafusy. It grabbed me right away by featuring one of my favorite poems from one of my favorite poets on the front page: Amy Clampitt’s luscious Marine Surface, Low Overcast. Clampitt has to be one of the only poets besides Walt Whitman who can make…

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Been there over the weekend. A very cramped place, few amenities, and the price is steep. Had a weekend with aging disabled parents and find myself thoughtful about how we treat our elders in America. I can’t speak for other countries, especially those with socialized medicine, but here it’s a jungle — brutally divergent levels of care depending on who you worked for and how much you amassed and where you live. And most good,…

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I found this little web site that seems to have had the same idea I’ve had — squares or paragraphs of words that could be identified as poems or could be identified as short-shorts, or … It’s called Six Little Things, and they have an interesting selection of pieces. I like calling them “pieces.” I like the whole idea of losing the right-ragged edge of poetry, losing the paragraphs of prose, losing the identifying marks…

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It’s good to google yourself once in awhile. And even to do so in several different search engines. Today I used ask.com and was delighted to find myself quoted in a fascinating article about online poetry by Frank Wilson, book editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer (May 21, 2006). He quotes several poets from the blogosphere and elsewhere on the Internet. What he picked up from me was a sound bite: “online poetry is a participant…

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The Internet Poetry Archive (University of North Carolina Press) has audio files of Wilbur reading. He reads well. Dimensions of the poetry are heightened — his wit and heart more evident. The Archive also has other poets reading: Seamus Heaney and Robert Pinsky among my favorites. Includes Pinsky’s amazing reading of “Shirt.” Having toiled before a sewing machine a few hours myself, this reading gives me shivers. Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by…

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Some online readings of Richard Wilbur’s work: Modern American PoetryAcademy of American Poets And interviews and essays on his poetry: Dana GioiaJames Longenbach at Slate I especially like Longenbach’s summation of Wilbur’s importance with a quote from one of his poems: “Wilbur’s poems matter not because they may or may not be stylish at any given moment but because they keep the English language alive: Wilbur’s great poems feel as fresh—as astonishing, as perplexing, as…

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Poetry, that is. Naming Richard Wilbur the recipient of the Ruth Lilly Prize. I thought they’d never wake up and smell the poetry. This is a poet whose body of work is really worthy of a $100,000 prize. Whatever you think of it, his Collected, which I got last year, shows a mature talent that spans many years and fads and has weathered it all with grace. It seems odd to me that the magazine…

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My daily dose of Savitri: Thus could he step into that magic place Which few can even glimpse with hurried glance Lifted for a moment from mind’s laboured works And the poverty of Nature’s earthly sight. All that the Gods have learned is there self-known. There in a hidden chamber closed and mute Are kept the record graphs of the cosmic scribe, And there the tables of the sacred Law, There is the Book of…

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Stanley Kunitz We all knew he couldn’t live forever — could he? But the picture of the poet at 100 years old, full of verbal vigor and lyrics might inspired those of us writing past the half-century mark to again consider ourselves young poets. I thought, when I heard the news, that I wish I had sent him my book. It would have no doubt landed in a great pile, but would have added to…

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