Back to the Center

"The Poetry Society of America is honored to announce that Marilyn Nelson is the 2012 recipient of the organization's highest award, the Frost Medal, presented annually for "distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry." Previous winners of this award include Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Marianne Moore, and Charles Simic, who was the 2011 recipient."

(via the PSA)


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"Why is poetry no longer one of the primary forms of political analysis and commentary in this country?

The answer to this question might seem obvious. Most media, at least the high profile print, broadcast and online media accessed by most people on a regular basis, no longer view poetry as an appropriate means of political analysis and commentary — a view largely shared by most American poets whose work these days tends to deal with subjects and in ways best-suited for the pages of small literary journals or Friday night bar readings."

(Michael Silverstein, via TVM)


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"There are books that are hard to classify. "The Man Within My Head" is part memoir, part travelogue, part . . . what? Literary criticism is not the right term; nor is biography. The man within Pico Iyer's head is the novelist Graham Greene (1904-91), whom he describes as his "adopted father," though he never met him and though memories of his real father, Raghavan Iyer, a scholar and philosopher, also permeate the book. The book is like a maze where your walking keeps bringing you back to the center: Mr. Iyer's determination to understand the fascination Greene exerts on him."

(Allan Massie reviews Pico Iyer's The Man Within My Head (Knopf), via the WSJ)



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I used to think that at some point, maybe after 10 years or 20 or who knows how many, I would suddenly wake up one day and find that writing had somehow gotten easier.  I was so naive to ever think that.  The more I know, the more I am aware of my mistakes.  Some of those mistakes are fortunate ones.  And some, well, some are not so fortunate.


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Clue:  Last step


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