The poems of Cody-Rose Clevidence are shot through with a sense of nature’s vitality and with the possibility that the numinous, even the divine, may inhere in that nature.
Mark Scroggins
Mark Scroggins is a poet, biographer, and critic. His recent books include the poetry collection Pressure Dressing, the essay collection The Mathematical Sublime: Writing About Poetry, and a selection of the erotic poetry of Algernon Charles Swinburne. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey, and Manhattan.
Can Poetry Make a Difference?
Contemporary politically committed poets have made a cottage industry of agonizing over the question of whether their Leftist bona fides actually make any difference.
When the Ancient Greeks Go Rogue
David Hadbawnik and Anne Carson aren’t aiming to produce new schoolroom translations of the classics; they’ve reimagined these ancient texts in the light of our violent and chaotic contemporaneity.
A Brilliant Poetry Star Who Burned Out Too Quickly
Jack Spicer’s poetry can be deeply funny and playful but it has a consistent undercurrent of sadness.
Scottish History Echoes in the Writings of Two North American Poets
Poets Shara McCallum and Karen Solie channel Scotland through historical fiction and the deep-seated malaise of modernity.
The Mythology of the Cross-Country Motorcycle Trip in Ed Roberson’s Early Poems
Ed Roberson’s motorcycle ride from Pittsburgh to the Pacific is a quest-romance, an exploration of American culture and American mythology.
A Medieval Mystic as a Muse for Two Poets
Some 600 years later, Margery Kempe’s disquieting sobs continue to confound and provoke.
Making Poetry From Mallarmé’s Mistakes
Ellen Dillon’s verdict on Mallarmé’s pedagogical text? Pretty shaky.
British Poetry’s New Avant-Garde
British poetry is really as energetic and varied as its American counterpart.
Poetry at the Intersection of Art and Twitter
The poems in Ken Babstock’s Swivelmount convey a sense that the whole truth of reality is tantalizingly just beyond one’s grasp.
Douglas Kearney’s Poetry of Performance
Kearney’s language — exquisitely torqued and modulated, sheering from the formal to the vernacular — reminds us that we are in the hands of a masterful performer.
A Poet of Isolation and Uncertainty
The poems in Jean Day’s Late Human carry a sense of having arrived at a moment when nothing feels quite right.