Poets and Poems: Yvor Winters and "Selected Poems"

It was the Roaring Twenties, the age of the Lost Generation, T.S. Eliot’s poetry modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, speakeasies, Art Deco, keeping cool with Coolidge, and Expressionism. Everything in art and literature was fair game and often was. And young poets like Yvor Winters fit right into the moment. 

In Yvor Winters: Selected Poems, poet and critic Thomas Gunn tells us that Winters (1900-1968) began his poetry career when he was 20, and was something of a maverick, or avant garde poet. He published his first (and very short) collection, The Immobile Wind, in 1921, and followed it a year later with another short collection, The Magpie’s Shadow. He invented a poetic form, a single six-syllable line; his description of spring rain being “My doorframe smells of leaves.”

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Christina Rosetti: A Woman for All Seasons – Tessa Carman at Acton Institute. 

 

The Cook’s Second Tale, from The ‘Lost” Canterbury Tales – Paul Freeman at Society of Classical Poets. 

 

A Hobbit’s Journey Home: Crossing the Atlantic and the Tiber – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative. 

10 Great Medieval Vibes Photos to Inspire Your Writing – Tweetspeak Poetry.

Discovering a Forgotten Poet: J.V. Cunningham

Poet J.V. Cunningham (1911-1985) is almost unknown today. His poetry zigged when the fashion said zag; he was a formalist when modernism and free verse had triumphed. And yet, and a discussion of his poetry should always be followed by “and yet,” while he was still alive, his poetry was considered among the very best being published. 

His teacher and mentor Yvor Winters considered Cunningham to be one of the finest writers working in the English language. Critics said his poetry would still be read 50 years after his death. Others called him the most talented of his generation. But today he’s barely remembered.

Wiseblood Books has issued a new edition of Cunningham’s The Exclusions of a Rhyme: Poems and Epigrams, first published in 1960. 

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

Poets and Poems: A.M. Juster and “Wonder & Wrath”

A.M. Juster is a poet, translator, and essayist. He’s published his own poetry collections, as well of translations of John Milton, Horace, Tibullus, and others. His works also include The Billy Collins Experience and Saint Aldhelm’s Riddles. A poetry collection, The Secret Language of Women, won the Richard Wilbur Award, and he’s received the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award three times, two honorary degrees, and the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize.  

In other words, he’s a presence in the poetry world. If you follow him on Twitter, you discover something else. Juster is a champion for poetry, constantly promoting the work of other poets. And he’s a kind man, welcoming every new follower individually – and helping to broaden the online poetry community in the process. 

 

His ninth and latest poetry collections, Wonder & Wrath, demonstrates his mastery of a number of formal poetry, including just enough free verse included to provide a contrast.

 

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

Poets and Poems: James Matthew Wilson and “Some Permanent Things”

For the past four to five years, poetry has been enjoying a significant resurgence. But it is a resurgence only when broadly defined, and that means “when including the internet.” The Guardian recently discussed the rise of a new generation of poets fueling the rise, originating on the internet and especially Instagram. Instagram poets, when they collect and publish their work in print form, can sell tens of thousands of copies. Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey sold almost half a million copies.

Not even Billy Collins sells half a million copies of a poetry book. 

The Guardian article goes on to point out that the Instagram poets have largely bypassed the familiar poetry gatekeepers – the poetry magazines, poetry societies, and academics who often serve as critics. These poets don’t need Poetry Magazineor the Academy of American Poets to help them sell tens of thousands of copies of their poetry books. The old order somewhat sniffs at the transience of the internet, while the new order runs rather merrily all the way to the bank. The resurgence in poetry has barely touched the traditional poets. We haven’t seen this kind of upheaval in poetry since the modernist poets of the 1910s and 1920s upset the then-traditional poetry cart.

All of this was swirling in my head as I read Some Permanent Things by James Matthew Wilson.

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