Dear Kevin
You’ve been dead for a week now, and I’ve been seized by a kind of mania in trying to track down that original letter . . . a desperate need for a detail. This happens after the person who could corroborate that detail is gone. You are that person now, Kevin. You’re dead, and I’m a wreck.
Service Economy
It was just about here, five pages in, that I began to feel a desire to write about this extraordinary book. Something about Kunin’s framing of the poem’s underlying aggression got to me. That’s the magic of Love Three. It sneaks up on you, then overpowers you. The relentless, titillating, intellectual pleasure of it. Of candor, of clear, unfashionable, insight, Kunin’s Love Three is a masterpiece.
R. I. P. Emmanuel Hocquard, 1940-2019
I am very saddened to learn that French poet Emmanuel Hocquard, a singular poet, a singular person, has died. I knew he was ailing, but I had hoped I might see him one more time.
The Makers’ Spell
I treated myself in the final days of 2018 to a reading of Ann Lauterbach’s book of poems, Spell. It’s an amazing book. Passing my eyes over its pages provoked in me singular journeys down enticing mental avenues until I’d look up from the page in a swoon of contemplation.
Thirty Years Ago Today
As 2016 turned into 2017 my husband Steve Evans reminded me that this night was in fact the thirty year anniversary of the New Year’s Eve that could, from a certain perspective, be said to be the beginning of our relationship.
Stephen Rodefer: November 20, 1940 — August 22, 2015
I feel a mix of nostalgia and melancholy today, occasioned by the news that my old teacher and sometime friend, poet Stephen Rodefer, has died in Paris.
The Poetics of Letters
A correspondence continued over many years with the same person allows for the slow development of aesthetic ideas in an environment of trust, trust built via subsequent confessions, the sharing of ideas, and yes, texts.
Rituals and Respects
The liturgies of poetry, one might call them: pilgrimages, offerings, silence, ceremonious readings in significant places, benedictions, and genuflections. The material book, from codex to paperback, seems to encourage ritualistic behavior: the slow unrolling or turning of pages, a treasure of magical knowledge waiting to be released.
On Signing and Selling Books
For the poet, nothing makes the “herte” full suddenly “gan to colde” than encountering a warmly signed copy of one’s own book not where or when expected, in a used bookstore, or perhaps even on the shelves of someone other than the dedicatee.