Category Archives: Poetry

Cock Tail

Posted on March 17, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Hung over: overindulged alcoholic poets as I have waded through two thick biographies: Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance by Lewis Ellingham and Kevin Killian City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara by … Continue reading →

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Entrained

Posted on March 16, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Jeffrey Donaldson’s collection of poems Slack Action can at times mislead the reader into believing the author lacks a sense of polish and that there is ample room for tightening up the diction. But the sensitive reader may see in … Continue reading →

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Pearls, Stars and Selves

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Lost selves found in symbol. Fadi Abou-Rihan upon reading the entry about Gwendolyn MacEwen’s translation of the Yannis Ritsos poem “Helen” suggested the play by Carole Fréchette Helen’s Necklace. The play has been translated by John Murrell. As the back … Continue reading →

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The Great Through The Small

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Francois Lachance

There are these lines from the handsome edition (designed by Tim Inkster and typeset at The Coach House and published by Exile Editions) of Gwendolyn MacEwen‘s translation of Helen, a poem by Yannis Ritsos, these lines that take on the … Continue reading →

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Directions Separations

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Francois Lachance

In this odd little text set in courier there is a neat trick of severing words with «guillemets» (French quotation marks). There are only two instances. (details, the rest s » weep The next and final instance swerves almost to … Continue reading →

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Fluctuations in Verbal Moods

Posted on March 8, 2010 by Francois Lachance

What struck me in the poetry of Alice Burdick is the mixing of verbal moods. She shifts within one poem or another between the indicative and the imperative. I will not quote her but will note here that the title … Continue reading →

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Wheat Landscapes

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Francois Lachance

From a finger exercise … “The wheat fields of the plain may appear monotonous but from the correct perspective appear to possess the sublimity of waves.” “I don’t know what you want / but I can hold the window open … Continue reading →

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Quivering Craziness

Posted on February 27, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Robert Bly published ten of his translations from Francis Ponge and ten of his own poems inspired by Ponge. Let’s take a look a single phrase. Les papillons miteux […] tous frémissent aux bords d’une frénésie voisine de la stupeur. … Continue reading →

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Double Double and Twirl

Posted on February 23, 2010 by Francois Lachance

I saw the bloom in the spring garden — bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis ‘Flore Pleno’) — and I thought of the poem and book with the title The Double Dream of Spring by John Ashbery and I love the lines: For … Continue reading →

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Time’s Mechanics

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Francois Lachance

Brian Eno. Times shown are British Standard Time; Calculations are made on the assumption that the Gregorian Calendar will remain in use. The Gregorian Calendar errs by one day in two thousand years, thus posing a dilemma for performers of … Continue reading →

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