-
Close Readings by Andrew Shields
Andrew Shields Lest they get lost in the increasingly abundant comment stream flowing from my previous post, let me bring to the top the four close readings of individual poems Andrew Shields mentioned in that stream. They deal with poems by Rae Armantrout, Adrienne Rich, Kit Robinson, and John Agard. These are four different as different can be poets, and Andrew’s readings are fine indeed.Read More
-
Mainstreams in Retrospect
A few weeks back Andrew Shields posted some thoughts on the notion of “mainstreams.” I commented on it and want to clarify and expand on that comment a bit, mainly because the use of “mainstream” as a pejorative in the poetry world is so annoying. Every poet wants to be an outlier, a rebel, radically individual or at least a member of a radically individual crowd. Hence the spectacle of tenured professors denouncing “mainstream poetry.” But does mainstream poetry exist? Well—yes and no. I think mainstreams exist only in retrospect.Read More
-
Without a Paddle
I can’t let the day go by without sharing these two poems by Andrew Shields.Read More
-
Welcome, Welcome, Little Star
I can’t remember now how I heard about this new lit mag, but I it must have been from a trusted source because I coughed up the subscription fee when I really shouldn’t be subscribing to any more publications, the bedside stack of which sometimes trips me up when I get up in the middle of the night to … well, you know. Anyway, Little Star turns out to be a beautiful magazine, physically in The Paris Review tradition–200 perfect bound, cleanly laid-out pages–but its content is focused primarily on poetry.Read More
-
Escapist
I’ve been silent awhile, mostly because I’ve had nothing of substance to say—a state I get into fairly frequently, truth be told. Prisoners in old movies would knot bed sheets together while painstakingly working the bars on their windows loose; in slightly less aged movies, prisoners work bricks free from a wall and spend years digging their way to freedom with a spoon. Me: I read books. Books and magazines and blogs. Eventually there’s a flash of hope: the bars come loose in my hands, or a streak of dusty light appears at the end of the tunnel.Read More
-
The Naked Ginsberg
Andrew Shields, a follower of this blog, has some new translations of German poet Dieter M. Gräf on a rather amazing multilingual Web site called lyrikline. One Andrew recommends is “The Naked Ginsberg“—a poem that rediscovers Ginsberg through the smokescreen of post-9/11 New York City.Read More
-
Oratory vs. Conversation
Thanks to Andrew Shields for his post dealing with Elizabeth Alexander and the question of the oratorical vs. what I would call the conversational style of reading aloud most poets use. No one programmatically teaches poets to read this way, I think, but the style is certainly entrenched. Only “performance poets” dissent from it—although Naropa preserves Ginsberg’s exalted hipster oratory in the supercharged person of Anne Waldman. Note also Andrew’s link to a thoughtful, humane post by Reb Livingston…. Here, by the way, is Alexander’s poem with the correct lineation.Read More
-
The 11th Follower
A hearty welcome to new Perpetual Bird follower Andrew Shields. Our thought-canoes have passed, now close, now farther apart, in a variety of comment streams (always a pleasure).Read More
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
