The Poetry Offensive

Is it just me, or is there some sort of poetry offensive going on?

Re: Sailing Alone Around the Room

After sampling a few Billy Collins poems I got a very high hit rate by his collection of greatest hits from previous collections: Sailing Alone Around the Room. Many of them read more like short shorts, but the insights at the end are often unexpected and the language of metaphor very poetic. And they’re funny.

I gotta see a poem about a dog

So there was this poem I heard on Prairie Home Companion that I liked, but all I remembered was ,” “Poet Laureate,” “dog, and “fun-nee.” I got sidetracked by the wrong Poet Laureate, but another stab into the PHC site turned up the segment where I first heard it. Three years ago. Wow. This is […]

Monosonnets? What?

I know nothing about poetry. First I stumbled on a couple of poems by Sherman Alexie that I like. The first is an interrupted monosonnet that falls into a wonderful singing rhythm when you read it out loud. The second is a snarky response to Frost’s “Whose woods are these?” question. To me the question […]

Re: Essential Pleasures

I blame what little I know of poetry these days on Garrison Keillor. Sometimes he reads one I like. Sometimes he reads one that seems like a humorous anecdote, but I just don’t get what makes it into a poem. Mostly he reminds him that I like the sound of the spoken word, and he […]