Category Archives: Poetry

Night Falls Darkness Rises

Posted on November 9, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Maureen Scott Harris. Drowning Lessons distance stands up around me It is a perhaps puzzling assertion until one makes the experiment oneself. Looking down at one’s toes, sensing the short distance, slowly raising one’s head to peer above the tree … Continue reading →

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Abbreviated Derive

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Joseph N. Riddel. The Turning Word: American Literary Modernism and Continental Theory. In the context of discussing Charles Olson provides a neat explication of poem as “field”. A poem composes a “field” but an “open field,” and may function like … Continue reading →

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Sheets

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Francois Lachance

J.D. McClatchy is both an editor of James Merrill’s poetry and the author of an homage “Ouija” (in Hazmat) in memory of the American poet. Reading the two poets back to back I am fascinated by their treatment of the … Continue reading →

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Great Beginnings

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Francois Lachance

James Merrill Nights and Days “Violent Pastoral” In the short space of four lines Merrill paints a dynamic picture and sets the stage for bonding both creatures into a single arresting image. Against a thunderhead’s Blue marble, the eagle Mounts … Continue reading →

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Angry Androgynes

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Francois Lachance

A discussion about the political uses of anger (and the dangers of internalized unexpressed anger) led me to reread “The Phenomenology of Anger” by Adrienne Rich. It is found in Diving Into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972. Nestled mid-way in the … Continue reading →

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Long Flight To Crash Instants

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Francois Lachance

On the DVD of Ferlingetti: A Rebirth of Wonder there is a bonus track of the poet reading “History of Airplanes”. He is wearing a leather aviator cap and goggles. The performance is disarming. He looks goofy and the viewer … Continue reading →

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Speeding

Posted on October 26, 2009 by Francois Lachance

This poet reminds me of Suzanne Buffam of the “Little Commentaries” section of The Irrationalist. A distinguishing characteristic is the turn. Here is one in full — I like how the title reads as a first line so that the … Continue reading →

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Heart Flare

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Denise Riley in the “Bad Words” chapter from The Force of Language has a very visceral evocation of the lasting hurt of words meant to injure. Old word-scars embody a ‘knowing it by heart’, as if phrases had been hurled … Continue reading →

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Arrows

Posted on October 22, 2009 by Francois Lachance

The figure of St. Sebastian, the martyr, is the object of an identificatory moment in Richard Howard’s “Purgatory, formerly Paradise” collected in Fellow Feelings. This one line stands out for our purposes: so that the arrows in us become our … Continue reading →

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There Goes The Neighbourhood

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Inspired by Jean-Jacques Lecercle’s introduction to The Force of Language (by Jean-Jacques Lecercle and Denise Riley) I am about to play an obliteration game (in reverse) with a segment by Lisa Robertson. First, Lecercle’s example generated by dropping one word … Continue reading →

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