Poets and Poems: Erin Murphy and "Swoon"

I’ve read a considerable number of poetry collections subtitled “New and Selected Poems” or “Collected Poems.” But it was only reading “Swoon: New & Selected Poems” by Erin Murphy that I realized that such a collection could also be a biography. 

Murphy has assembled poems from 11 previously published collections plus a few new ones. The result is a collective story of a life, from childhood memories, through young adulthood, the arrival of children, changes in relationships, the deaths of friends, the music enjoyed, travel, vacations, worries about physical appearance, observations about celebrities. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

The chain ferry – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Emily Dickinson, buttercups, and death – Padraig O Tuana at Poetry Unbound.

 

“The Waste Land,” poem by T.S. Eliot – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Uncharted – poem by Bethany Lee at Every Day Poems.

 

Crossing the Trestle – poem by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Erin Murphy and “Mother as Conjunction”

When we were children, my brothers and I would sometimes be handed a snack that I thought had been invented by my mother. “Bread, butter, and sugar” was possibly our favorite treat. My mother was tickled that we saw it as a special dessert. It was only years later, when I visited her in a rehab center while she recovered from a broken hip bone, that she told me where it had come from. 

She grew up in the Great Depression. Money was so tight that my aunt quit high school because she couldn’t pay the 25 cents for gym clothes. My mother, the fourth of six children, knew hunger. She said there were times when there was nothing to eat, so they’d go to bed hungry. The next day, my grandmother would prepare sandwiches for school, using the only ingredients she had – butter and sugar sandwiches. It was a poor child’s lunch in the 1930s, and her own children thought of it as a terrific treat.

 

Reading poet Erin Murphy’s new work, Mother as Conjunction, imagine my surprise to discover someone else who had the same experience as my mother, except it happened decades later. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Nature – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Memento Mori: On Philip Larkin’s “Aubade” and its Discontents – Alexander Fayne.

 

The Sea in You – poem by David Whyte.

 

“My Heart Leaps Up,” poem by William Wordsworth – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Whatever Is – poem by Sarah Chestnut at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Four Collections by Erin Murphy, Part 2

Poet Erin Murphy is credited with the creation of a new poetic form. It’s called the “demi-sonnet,” and it’s a seven-line form, half the length of a traditional sonnet. It also doesn’t rhyme (or doesn’t have to rhyme,), and it leans in the direction of an aphorism. Murphy introduced the form in 2009, and her collection Word Problems: Demi-Sonnets was published in 2011. 

I mention this because the idea of form, and related themes of order and classification, appear to have been a significant focus for Murphy’s poetry for a considerable period. Form helps establish order, as does classification. Murphy continues to explore these ideas and themes in her most recently published collections, Fluent in Blue: Poems (2024) and Human Resources (2025).

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

“A Noiseless, Patient Spider,” poem by Walt Whitman and “As I Was Going to St. Ives,” poem by Anonymous at Mother Goose – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“When on My Day of Life the Night Has Fallen,” hymn by John Greenleaf Whittier – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Alight – poem by Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

A Creativity Recess Kit –Bethany Rohde at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Four Collections by Erin Murphy, Part 1

Erin Murphy is a professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, Altoona College. She may also be one of the most prolific writers and poets working in academia. She’s written or edited some 14 books, four in the last three years alone, with another poetry collection and an anthology of essays in the publishing pipeline. Her first poetry collection, Science of Desire, was published in 2004; her most recent, Human Resources, was published this year. She also serves as editor of The Summerset Review. 

You can wear yourself out just reading her biographical information: collections, books, prizes, teaching awards, nominations, journals and magazines publishing more than 300 of her individual poems, and editing.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

5 Fun Ways to Play with Language – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“The Battle-Field,” poem by William Cullen Bryant – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“Ulysses,” poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Purposefully Lost – poem by Tim Hawkins at Every Day Poems.