The (unnamed) writer at A London Inheritance had a post this week about taking a walk in London. She calls pat of the “Rocque Ring,” and it forms the boundary of London in 1745. It begins at the Blue Coat School, located on Caxton Lane at the corner of Buckingham Gate, goes past Buckingham Palace, and then moves up Constitution Hill to Hyde Park. Our hotel – the one we’ve stayed at six times since 2013, is a short block from the Blue Coat School. This was “our neighborhood,” close to Victoria, near the Wellington Guards Barracks, and two blocks from the Palace and St. James’s Park. We could, and often did, walk to Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, and even Westminster Abbey. And we could, and often did, run into all the protests that are a daily occurrence in London.
Englishman Henry Oliver, who writes about books, found himself in the Middle South of the United States – Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. And he discovered that there’s nothing boring in America.
Matthew Zapruder is, well, a presence in poetry. He’s a poet. He’s published sixcollections of poetry the most recent being I Love Hearing Your Dreams (2024). His poetry is known for exploring themes of grief, perception, and logic. He published the influential work Why Poetry? He’s written essays and articles and done translations. He’s received awards, honors, and fellowships. He co-founded a publishing house. And he teaches in the MFA and English Department at Saint Mary’s College of California in suburban Sab Francisco.
And now he’s published a memoir, The Story of a Poem. It may be the most unusual memoir I’ve read. No, it’s not written as a long poem, or series of poem. It looks like a standard memoir.
I’ve talked before about my experiences with the art of Anselm Kiefer. I’d seen two of works at the St. Louis Art Museum, and then in 2014 I walked into an entire exhibition at the Royal Academy of London. Over this past winter, the St. Louis Art Museum staged a massive exhibition of his works entitled “Becoming the Sea,” named for a line of poetry from Gregory Corso. One work also cited lines from the poet Paul Celan, and I just posted about Celan last week. Yes, I’m a fan of Kiefer’s art, but I don’t think I could quite articulate why.
Until now. I read a poem in This Gift Card Has Already Been Redeemed, the new collection by Mischa Willett. The poem is about Kiefer, and it’s about art, writing, and books. And it’s mostly about the act of artistic creation. The poem explained, to me, at least, what it was about Kieffer’s art that I find so profound.
