Category Archives: Poetry

The Set of Seven Utterances

Posted on September 29, 2013 by Francois Lachance

Attila József (1905 – 1937) “The Seventh” Winter Night: Selected Poems of Attila József, translated by John Bátki These are the opening stanzas: If you set out in this world, better be born seven times. Once, in a house on … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged | Leave a comment

Praxis Parabasis

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Francois Lachance

Alice Burdick Simple Master “Light Daily Shifts” I can’t work for you because I’m lost in your theory. It was a bad idea to start and made awful by practice. Dear reader, is one to identify with the speaking I … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged | Leave a comment

My Body Is Like A Home

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Francois Lachance

Alice Burdick Holler “Body house” [after extending an analogy between ears and eyes as windows and mouth as door, this ends the poem] Her body is a house, and she’s home for now. And with the end of the poem … Continue reading →

Posted in Metaphor, Poetry | 1 Comment

Manner and Matter

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Francois Lachance

Charles Taylor The Malaise of Modernity (CBC Massey Lectures) [A]n important subjectivation has taken place in post-Romantic art. But it is clearly a subjectivation of manner. It concerns how the poet has access to whatever he or she is pointing … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

I Hope It’s Toast

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Francois Lachance

Alice Burdick Simple Master “Remembrance Day” I can’t help but read a pun on the name Kurt Weil in this passage. Large music comes from books, vile or Oklahoma. Cows fly in movies and dust heaps up mountains. If you … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged | Leave a comment

Collecting and Commitment

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Francois Lachance

Introduction by Robert Pinsky to English Renaissance Poetry: A Collection of Shorter Poems from Skelton to Jonson Selected by John Williams In the beginning, for many poets and readers, there are anthologies. They often provide our earliest source for poems, … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

Dripping with Irony

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Francois Lachance

Alice Burdick book of short sentences “Enter the building” I’ve never explicitly written a poem about a cup of tea on a table. So this section is about that thing That ladies should write about to seem accessible. Tea. It … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

Common Corrosive Ancestor

Posted on September 14, 2013 by Francois Lachance

I like how this gently moves from the consideration of the conditions for epic to an aperçu of a specific historical mentalité … Yet without a mythical or cosmological scheme positing a continuity between human and divine, it is difficult … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

Paleontologist Stung

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Francois Lachance

Robert Graves On English Poetry (1922) Appendix: — The Dangers of Definition […] let the Dictionary be a hive of living things and not a museum of minutely ticketed fossils. And this bon mot like a bee caught in amber … Continue reading →

Posted in Metaphor, Poetry | Leave a comment

Force & Metamorphosis

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Francois Lachance

What charmed me in this small poetic fragment was the notion of something vegetal (green & climbing) transmuting itself into the feline presence, a menacing presence intent on reaching out more Sir, Say no More By Trumbull Stickney (1874 – … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment