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.
The Poet’s Two Bodies
If you are a teacher and a poet perhaps you have noticed how your classroom presence, though ostensibly premised on your artistic accomplishments, can be utterly absent of them. I refer to those awkward ego confounding moments when, after the visiting writer has concluded a classroom visit, your beloved students, aglow, turn to you and proclaim, “so cool to meet an actual published author!”
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.
Forché at Fifteen and Fifty
I was only fourteen, however, when I first encountered Carolyn Forché. Here’s how I remember it . . .
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.
Author Function
The whole charade surrounding the “grandiosity of authors” just makes me embarrassed. I realize that the Miami Book Fair hopes to promote literary culture in part by treating authors as stars—but as Foucault articulated, the Author Function does not come about by an act of “spontaneous attribution”— such as hanging a tag with the word “author” around the neck of a poet.
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.