A Letter Is… by Emily Guck-McGuigan
A letter is…. A humanly imperfect cartography of thoughts and experience Made not for self-exploration (Though insight often emerges from the act) But for sending on– Inviting, “Imagine yourself here!”
Category: Poets
Lobbyist for Tenderness
I first read Allen Ginsberg’s City Lights paperback Howl and Other Poems late one autumn night 1980 with friends at the White Castle at the corner of Bardstown Road and Eastern Parkway. A few months…
Remember–Longing, Too, Is Impermanent
To a man who said we should meet, even if it were only for a single time Even if I now saw you Only once, I would long for you Through worlds, Worlds. –Izumi Shikibu…
The Best Minds of My Generation: For Rob Trousdale and Lindsey Trout Hughes
Re: Allen Ginsberg, The Best Minds of My Generation:A Literary History of the Beats, edited by Bill Morgan Dear Rob and Lindsey, I’m grateful to you both for sharing your writing with me and through…
Call Me by My True Names
35 years ago today, I participated in the mass demonstration in New York City against nuclear arms. While there, I heard Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh read aloud this English translation of one of…
Good Clean Fun
My friend Te Martin shared this photo of a Diane di Prima broadside she encountered on her travels…
Cultivating Avidity
Books of poetry will teach you more than your mentor or professor or the well-known poet you have traveled to a conference to work with. Reading is like food to a writer; without it, the…
The Endless Net
Ten years ago, I read Eliot Weinberger’s anthology, World Beat: International Poetry Now (New Directions, 2006). Looking back, I’m grateful, because that volume (re)introduced me to Israeli Aharon Shabtai, Iraqi Dunya Mikhail, and Chilean Nicanor…
On Daniel Berrigan
1. Some of Daniel Berrigan’s Whitmanian multitudes: Brother, uncle, jailbird, correspondent, chef, Jesuit, retreat master, playwright poet, peacemaker, mentor, reader, teacher, prophet, son, friend, logophile. 2. In our age they they talk about the importance…
Note to Cami on Reznikoff
I read Reznikoff in summer of 2010 As much as I could find Used, at Amazon By him, about him I like his spare style That was the year I was generating a piece a…