JACK GILBERT WAS TOO HORNY TO BE A METAPHYSICAL POET not that sex and metaphysics cancel each other out— his was good news for Linda Gregg, until it wasn’t. Interviewer: Did you and Linda ever collaborate? JG: We were intertwined. We read each other’s poetry, appreciated each other’s poetry, discarded each other’s poetry. (Quick shout-out … Read more
Confessional poetry has had a haunted reputation from its post-war onset. The literary legacies of Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and W. D. Snodgrass—widely considered ground zero for the entire confessional school—are crucified at least as frequently as they’re praised, and a healthy allergy to what contemporary teachers of writing pertly refer to as … Read more
for Susan Millar DuMars More than a quarter of a century ago a man-child called Kevin retired from politics as he turned twenty seven. He had joined the then somewhat notorious Trotskyist group, the Militant Tendency[i], at the age of fifteen. After twelve years of activism, which began as a member of Galway West Labour … Read more
I am sticking my neck out to declare: Micheal O’Siadhail’s book-length poem, The Five Quintets, is the most important work of English-language literature that has been published so far this century. O’Siadhail’s towering achievement melds reflections on the arts, economics, politics, philosophy and, fascinatingly, science into lyrical verse that transfixes the reader. He urges we enter … Read more