On the flyleaf of a book of Japanese poetry translated into French, penciled handwriting tries out haikus. Haiku would have been a less familiar form in the early years of the 20th century, when the owner of the book sat here in an arm chair, playing with ideas. The handwriting is Edith Wharton’s. […]
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Rachel Barenblat and a circle of rabbis build a contemporary community
At the foot of Mount Greylock, a round building with a wall of windows looks out at the the stone path of a labyrinth in the grass. The center of the room is a sanctuary, and a woman stands taking in the light. She moves with poised self-command and an […]
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Ross Gay’s ‘Unabashed Gratitude’ surges with life
On a spring night in Bloomington, Indiana, Ross Gay is planting young lettuces. Winter has hung on so long, a warm evening feels new — to stand barefoot in a troweled furrow with the air smelling of earth and stems, and peels in the compost pile.
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National Book Awardwinning poet Louise Glück reads from ‘Faithful and Virtuous Night’
A man lies awake — gets up to walk. He remembers sharing a room with his bother when they were boys, his brother reading by nightlight and the sound of his breathing. He remembers excursions with their aunt, taking a boat upriver, watching a city float by in the dark. […]
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Ocean Vuong holds calm in chaos with contemporary poetry rooted in Viet Nam
In honor of National Poetry Month we honor and thank a poet who recently came to visit. Five years ago he was giving readings in Brooklyn — Zachary Finch heard of them through a friend in the city and listened, awe-struck, to poems like Aubade with Burning City. Ocean Vuong […]
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Honoring Richard Wilbur, a national poet in the Berkshire hills — BTW column
‘The morning air is all awash with angels.’ The early morning scene has stayed with me since high school. It isn’t etherial or oversweet. In the early light about dawn, a man wakes and hears the laundry going up to dry. ‘The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,’ concrete, […]
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Phillip B. Williams — Love and sadness in free verse
Bound, it begins. ‘Wasn’t night what lingered where sweat left / salt, where breath touch-expired?’ Bound is the title of the first poem in Phillip B. Williams ‘Thief in the Interior,’ a book that opens with confinement and insistent motion and closes with a movement outward into a changed life.
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Pop Up Poets bring the word to the streets
Poetry on a park bench? I once talked with three New York poets at once from my phone on Spring Street, and it seemed right, because that’s the way they perform their work. As National Poetry Month picks up momentum, here are the Pop Up Poets telling me how poems […]
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Internationally acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni celebrates life and liberty in the Berkshires
Internationally acclaimed poet and writer, professor and activist Nikki Giovanni took the mike and talked about “life, liberty and — what I most love — ‘the pursuit of happiness.’”
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Charles Simic hones poetry with spectacle and attention
A man drops his glasses and staggers away, singing — or straps on an accordion to leap a waterfall. Vivid scenes condense here on a spring night, when Charles Simic reads his poetry at Bennington College.
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