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THE RADICAL MIND
We all have a lens by which we see the world. That lens is ours and others cannot see through it—yet the lens is shaped by the world and belongs to the world; like our beliefs and rhetoric and...
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ARE YOU GOING
Things we think and never say. Are you going against his kiss? After sundown, you and I described bliss in each other’s arms. If I don’t miss the train anymore and merely wander the shore content to...
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WHAT YOU DID
What you did I don’t wish to remember. I wish it were forgotten. Bad memories are like opening an old bag and smelling something rotten and only you smell it. My mind was rotting from what you did. My...
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THE GOOD PERSON ALWAYS HAS A BIG EGO
I found myself believing everyone loved me; my self-worth being so high,I was like Wordsworth’s cloud glancing at things with joy from the sky.I really thought people were in love with me. This made...
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WHY DO WE MAKE FORMAL POETRY TOO COMPLEX?
The poet these days can’t win. Either free verse is the rule—and the poet wonders, “wait, so what is poetry?” —or those who like metrical verse make it so complicated, the poet is confused going in...
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THERE WERE NO POEMS
My life, I feel, is a revenge against someone; I just haven’t figured out who. It could be the woman who tried to teach me verse. But I suspect it might be you. The one I loved. I don’t know. I keep...
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GREAT POEMS SCARRIET FOUND ON FACEBOOK NO. 8
The genius—amused and miserable. Ben Mazer is looking forward to the months ahead: his “The Ruined Millionaire: New and Selected Poems” will be available November 1st, and in 2023 Farrar will publish...
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IT WAS MY FATE
It was my fate to know Ben Mazer, a small, wiry, secular genius of a jew, who led me to you. You loved him, but what did I know? My jealous intent had been sharpened by Poe, and I was, by necessity,...
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THERE ARE TWO IDEAS
I was aghast when my friend said my poetry had no ideas but I was complicit when I began to wonder: what is an idea? I had no idea. I had to agree no ideas are a good thing for poetry since none can...
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I PUSHED YOU
I pushed you, and unprepared, you fell. The world has muscles and inventions. It has alacrity. When I was new milk was sweet. That changed with years of actual sugar on my tongue. Milk became water, a...
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POEMS ARE DOGS
Poems are dogs. Language is focused and limited in both.Dogs and poems are only distantly connected to music.The poem and the dog are friendly, we swear, for real,but much closer to the truth is that...
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TIME ISN’T TRUE
Time isn’t true. It doesn’t bring me you. I slept all night and my dreams, perhaps, were bright— but something wasn’t right. I was instantaneously awake in black rain to find my dreams and the time...
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A HIDDEN GOOD
A hidden good drowns us in sleep so death will not seem so bad.Dreaming and half-asleep,it was the best basketball game I ever had;I didn’t know what I was doing.How do you understand a leap?It was...
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ISN’T THAT WHAT THE PHILOSOPHERS DO?
Isn’t that what the philosophers do?Ask a question and answer it while they are asking it?Is love an obsession because we don’t know what it is?Does he own the contents of a book because the book is...
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WHEN YOUR POEM, OR WHATEVER YOU CALL IT, INTRUDES
“I know nothing—and everyone.” —Julius Caesar When your poem, or whatever you call it, intrudeson reality with its reality, it’s like when modern art nudestake over the galleries or politicians make...
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EVERY POET NEEDS A MANIFESTO, OR WHAT IS THE NEW ROMANTICISM?
No good poem needs explaining. Poets, however, need to explain themselves. Every poet needs a manifesto. New Romanticism was really nothing more than my attempt to issue a manifesto. The New...
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DAVID LEHMAN, KING OF AMERICAN POETRY
There is no individual who more publicly stands for public poetry in America than David Lehman. He loves the poem on the Statue of Liberty. He has discussed the war poems of Homer and Auden and Harvey...
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IS AMERICAN POLITICS A FOREIGN POWER PSYOP?
“Civil war” has been on the lips of every talking-head pundit for years now, vastly accelerated since “Make America great again.” (Oh innocuous phrase of horrible meaning! Is nothing in our country...
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HUNGRY, AND AT WHAT EXPENSE?
Hungry, and at what expense, do I lecture in morals now, putting what is wonderful aside for what knows, stays, goes, and in these depths understands, but shows what we should do to be poor and good...
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YOU SMILED
You smiled—at how ridiculous I was when I was intent on love. After I climaxed, I saw it, too. And this defeated you. No wonder the truly beautiful wear their stiff brocade. No wonder they are...
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