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Full-Length Essays

 

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

  Reponse to Booktrust post written by British author Matt Haig.

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

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

• 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.

• Let's Talk About Grammar
  – originally posted to the PDC June 9, 2013

  An exploration on grammar and language sophistication. Originally a response to Matt Haig's follow up to "30 things to tell a book snob," the lesser attempt of "30 things to tell a grammar snob."

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

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

• #Poppoetry: The Unsurprising Culture of Poetry in the U.S.
  – originally posted to the PDC 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.

• Three Essays on the Poetic and the Prosaic

  • 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).

  • 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.

  • 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.

• 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.

 

 

Creative Writing Oriented Posts

 

• Aesthetic Validity and Ekphrasis
  – originally 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 Burial at Thebes and "Hercules and Antaeus"
  – added 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.

• Calculation: Bad Prose Does Not Make for Good Poetry
  – originally posted to the PDC March 1, 2013

  Playing off of Wordsworth's idea of a poem as something "calculated."

• Close Reading and Aesthetic Sophistication
  – originally 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.

• Ekphrastic Poetry and Ideational Strength
  – added Jan 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Apr. 14, 2014

  A look at the relationship between a ekphrastic poem and its subject work of art.

• Genuine and Sham Poetics: "Journey of the Magi"
  – added 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
  – added 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.

• Not "Write What You Know" But "Know What You Write"
  – originally posted to the PDC June 7, 2013

  Giving the workshop cliché a hit with the hammer.

• An Object Lesson in Brilliance
  – posted to the PDC blog June 9, 2013
  – added May 25, 2016

  Looking at one moment in "Let it Go" as an object lesson in attention to detail.

• Passing, Clever Phrases: Life on Mars
  – added 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).

• Proposing Some Natural Laws of Poetic Sound
  – originally posted to the PDC February 8, 2013

  A short and wholly taste-testy proposition. Something that will have to picked up again at another time.

• Reading Typography
  – added 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.

• Sonnet 128: A Study in Unity
  – added 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"
  – added 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.

• Tennyson's "Mariana": Ideation and Factuality
  – added 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.

• Three Comments on Technique
  – originally posted to the PDC February 27, 2013

  Three thoughts regarding the relationship between technique and the aesthetic work.

• Using the Word Suddenly
  – originally posted to the PDC April 24, 2013

  Showing the differance between the surface and the depth use of words like suddenly while going into the workshop cliché of "show don't tell."

• Why You Learn Formal Before Free
  – originally posted to the PDC February 20, 2013

  Talking about Eliot's and Pound's understanding that the mastery of formal verse is necessary to any mastery of free verse.

 

 

Criticism/Theory Oriented

 

• The 'Being' of Aesthetic Literature: Theoretical and Mythical Thinking
  – added Jan. 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Mar. 12, 2014

  A look at the two modalities of thought, writing, and being, through the engagement of Modernist artists with 'Primitive' art, and through Ernst Cassirer's Language and Myth. This offered in discourse around the idea presented by MacLeish in his poem "Ars Poetica," that a poem "should not mean but be."

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

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

• Notes on the Idea of Organicism, Part I: Coleridge
  – added Jan 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC May 6, 2014

  A presentation of the idea of organicism – in general to the Romantic era and specifically with Coleridge – as it is explicated in M.H. Abrams's The Mirror and the Lamp.

• Notes on the Idea of Organicism, Part II
  – added Jan 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC May 8, 2014

  An exploration of the idea of organicism as an foundational idea in the aesthetic, and as a tool in literary criticism.

• The Verse-Prose, Poetic-Prosaic Spectra

  • Verse or Prose, Poetic or Prosaic
    – added Jan 29, 2015
    – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 19, 2014

    Examines the relationship between the four concepts of verse, prose, the poetic, and the prosaic as prompted by a passage in Owen Barfield's Poetic Diction. Barfield recognizes that verse and prose are concerns of the material nature of the text, while the idea of the prosaic and poetic are concerns of the ideational or spiritual nature of the text.

  • Re-examining the Verse-Prose, Poetic-Prosaic Graph
    – added Jan 30, 2015
    – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 17, 2014

    Returning to a graph presented in the post "Verse or Prose, Poetic or Prosaic" to explore the relationship between the material and ideational axes do indeed intersect, creating a usable '+' grid of literature.

 

 

Other Literary Topics

 

• Defending Poetry Magazine
  – added 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.

• Entrances into Poems and Poetry
  – originally posted to the PDC February 13, 2013

  Sometimes a reader has to learn how to read a poem before they can read the poem. And Barthes's idea that an aesthetic text can only be re-read.

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

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

• Review: Poetry Magazine (Oct. 2015) – Part I (Introduction)
  – added May 25, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Oct. 15, 2015

  The opening essay to 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.

• Sharing a Found Bibliography
  – added Jan 29, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC June 28, 2014

  A bibliography of works on literary criticism and literary theory from Owen Barfield's Poetic Diction.

 

 

Cultural Criticism

 

• The Intellect and the Internet
  – posted to the PDC blog Sept. 28, 2015
  – added to the Cabinet May 25, 2016

  Does the internest hold a promising future for poetry and literary discourse? Or is more truly defined – and governed – by an ever dominating anti-intellectualism?