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Dates are the dates documents were added to the site.
 

• "30 things to say to a book snob" – A Literary Elitist's Response
  – April 25, 2013

  Reponse to Booktrust post written by British author Matt Haig.

• Aesthetic Book-Length Works

  I offer here a list of works which are attempt at writing an aesthetic, booklength text. Actually, three lists: those I've read, those I've not yet read, and those I've read and found not at all amusing.

• Aesthetic Validity and Ekphrasis
  – posted to the PDC March 14, 2013

  Introducing the concept of validity (being opposed to the idea of art and literary appreciation being about "what it means").

• The Best of the Poetry Daily Critique

  The more substantive posts from the blog.

• The Burial at Thebes and "Hercules and Antaeus"
  – Jan. 30, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 27, 2014

  Exploring the prosaic-poetic spectrum through a critical review of Heaney's two texts. Also, a comment on the idea of serious reading versus reading for fun.

• But You Don't Have to Call Me Johnson
  – May 5, 2012

  An exploration of why I have problems with the use of the words poem, poet, and poetry.

• Close Reading and Aesthetic Sophistication
  – posted to the PDC March 10, 2013

  A short defense of the importance of close reading as regards poetry (and literature in general) and the writing of poetry (and literature in general). Perhaps also comment on the seeming lack of ability at such for most poets.

• Cold Tea Blues: A Demonstration of Poetic Form
  – posted to the PDC blog May 25, 2015
  – added to the Cabinet May 25, 2016

  Using the lyrics of the Cowboy Junkies's song "Cold Tea Blues" to explore the idea of form and how repetition can be used to create highly effective form.

• Considering Lyn Hejinian's My Life
  – Oct. 29, 2014

  An examination of the book through the ideas of confidence, genuineness, and strength.

• Contemporary Poetic Banality
  – May 5, 2012

  A comment to a posting about Marjorie Perloff's "Poetry in the Brink: Reinventing the Lyric."(From the Tennyson blog.)

• Crash Davis vs. the Zombies (Review: Poetry Magazine (Oct. 2015) – Part IX)
  – posted to the PDC blog April 15, 2016
  – added to the Cabinet May 25, 2016

  Closing essay to the nine part series: a mostly free standing essay on the discourse on literature and its state in contemporary literary and poetry culture. Also: expertise, democracy, the vote, and zombie films.

• Defending Poetry Magazine
  – Feb. 5, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Dec. 3, 2013

  A comment on the nature and sophistication of the poetic content in Poetry Magazine, on one obvious reason why it is so, and how it might be corrected.

• The Emergence of the Occult from within the Culture of the Occult, or, When a Vampire is Just Trying to Get Laid
  – Sept. 30, 2014

  Aesthetic exploration of eroticism through three Hammer films: Lust for a Vampire, The Vampire Lovers, and Twins of Evil.

• Erotic Literature: E. E. Cummings's "the mind its own beautiful prisoner"
  – posted to the PDC, Nov. 14, 2016
  – posted to the Cabinet, Jun. 28, 2017

  The ideas of the prosaic and the poetic explored withn the erotic.

  Third part of a three part series on the poetic and the prosaic, with "Second Order Literature: Lowell and H.D." and "Organic and Mechanical Construction: Stevens and Rich"

• The Fallacy of Unity of Stance in de Sade
  – November 15, 2013

  A brief look at the four major works of de Sade.

• Genuine and Sham Poetics: "Journey of the Magi"
  – Jan 30, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Nov. 10, 2014

  Eliot's idea of genuine and sham poetry, through an exploration of the poetic line as seen in the opening stanza of his own "Journey of the Magi."

• The Importance of Knowledge to Creating
  – Jan. 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Feb. 13, 2013

  Brief note on the idea of sophistication and its relation to reading and writing; specifically, developing the poetic ear. Also, a look at chiasmus.

• Is There a Bar in Publishing?
  – posted to the PDC February 13, 2013

  A passing note on the question of why so much bad poetry gets published in the US.

• Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird
  – Dec. 10, 2014

  An exploration of book as a literary text, and of the discourse that surrounded its publication.

• Larkin: "An Arundel Tomb" – a Reading – Sept. 1, 2014

  An aesthetic close reading of the poem.

• A Literary Timeline
  – started April 14, 2013

  Simply a visual aid, but I have found them wonderfully helpful.

• Long Form Poems: A List

  Collection site for titles of long-form poetry.

• Noble Blasphemy
  – February 18, 2013

  This is, perhaps, the most important essay I have written as regards my own system of thought on the aesthetic and the nomic: not in that it gave me new ideas, for most of this essay comes out of ideas already possessed; rather, in that it gave me the language to speak those ideas, a personal language, the langauge of the aesthetic, the nomic, and blasphemy. It is through writing this essay that the system of my thought came unto itself. As such, this, more than anything else I might put here, is the center of the project that is this site.

• A Note on Close Reading
  – March 16, 2013

  Something from the PDC blog. A passing note on close reading and literature, and, especially, writing poetry.

• A Note on Sophistication and the Individual Reader
  – posted to the PDC February 4, 2013

  Discussion of the idea of "sophistication," an idea frequently seen on the PDC and this site.

• Notes Toward the Governing of a Future Literary Journal
  – September 22, 2012 (put here March 24, 2014)

  A note on literary journals, originally from the Tennyson blog.

• On Artistic Pretentiousness
  – November 10, 2012 (put here March 24, 2014)

  A note on literary journals, originally from the Tennyson blog.

• Organic and Mechanical Construction: Wallace Stevens's "Disillusionment of Ten O'clock" and Adrienne Rich's "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"
  – posted to the PDC, Oct. 5, 2016
  – posted to the Cabinet, Jun. 28, 2017

  Continuing the exploration of the prosaic and the poetic, this time bringing in verseform.

  Second part of a three part series on the poetic and the prosaic, with "Second Order Literature: Lowell and H.D." and "Erotic Literature: E. E. Cummings"

• Passing, Clever Phrases: Life on Mars
  – Jan 29, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 29, 2014

  A critical review and examination of the Pulitzer winning, poetry collection by Tracy K. Smith. Also, an exploration of the reading phrase by phrase verses reading a work in its entirety (playing off a moment in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria).

• Poetry in the U.S.: A Response to "Poetry Slam"
  – March 21, 2014

  Essay written in response to Mark Edmundson's article in Harpers.

• #Poppoetry: The Unsurprising Culture of Poetry in the U.S.
  – September 9, 2013

  An essay on the nomic nature of contemporary poetry, and how that nomic nature works against, rather than for, a culture of poetry as an aesthetic endeavor.

• Reading Typography
  – Jan. 27, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Feb. 1, 2014

  A short look at the use of typograpny in a poem, and how it comes off at little more than poppoetic gimmickry. Also, a moment on Cummings's own use of typography to create flatness in his poetry.

• Review: Poetry Magazine (Oct. 2015) – Part I (Introduction)
  – added Jan 29, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC June 28, 2014

  The opening introductory essay of my nine part review of an the verse contents of an issue of Poetry Magazine, giving thought to the state of contemporary poetry culture and Poetry Magazine's participation therein.

• "The River Ever Runs, and Anna Calls": A Joyce-Deleuzian Billet-Deux
  – Aug. 10, 2015
  – originally published Feb., 2005

  An essay on Finnegans Wake chapter 2.3, published in Hypermedia Joyce Studies. (Link takes you to the journal's site.)

• Second Order Literature: Amy Lowell's "Patterns" and H.D.'s "Garden"
  – posted to Cabinet and PDC, Sept. 13, 2016

  An examination of the difference between the prosaic (the mode of factuality) and the poetic (the mode of symbolism).

  First part of a three part series on the poetic and the prosaic, with "Organic and Mechanical Construction: Stevens and Rich" and "Erotic Literature: E. E. Cummings"

• Sonnet 128: A Study in Unity
  – Jan 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Jun. 7, 2014

  A demonstration of organic unity through Shakespeare's sonnet 128.

• The Standard Fare: Ange Mlinko's "Epic"
  – Feb. 5, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Dec. 9, 2013

  Following up on a previous post about the same poem in regards to Poetry Magazine, this time focusing primarily (but not exclusively) on the poem itself.

• Story Cards: Notes on the Naïve Narrative
  – April 8, 2013

  Informal exploration of the nomic narrative and the modality of history.

• Tennyson's "Mariana": Ideation and Factuality
  – Jan 30, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Sept. 12, 2014

  Looking at how ideation and structure work within Tennyson's "Mariana," considered one of his best works.

• Underworld: Review/Response
  – May 31, 2016

  Less a review, more a response, mostly explanation of why I stopped reading Underworld after 150 pages with no desire to continue.

• Why Study Laetitia Landon?
  – Sept. 26, 2015
  – reworked essay, originally written June, 1998

  Using Laetitia Landon's "Song" to ask fundamental questions about meritable poetry.

• Yeats, Folklore, and the Aesthetic
  – December 11, 2013

  An essay about Yeats's approach to folklore (and myth) and their relation to the aesthetic (and literature).