The Best American Poetry

ABOUT ERIC ERIC [by Martin Stannard]

Of course, it’s not his real name, though I am led to believe one half is real; the other half, as he once remarked, is “an act of concealment.” I first came across Eric Eric in 1986 when I was editing my then magazine joe soap’s canoe....

"Downsides" [by Denise Duhamel] in Martin Stannard's One-Shot Hit Lit Mag

--for Samantha Brick Seems I can’t go anywhere without some dude trying to get inside my frontal lobe. Just once I’d like to go to a hotel bar without hearing, “Nice brain stem! Can I bu...

Kathleen Heil, Guest Author November 7-11 and Introducing Martin Stannard

moystrela; Berlin, Oct 2016 This week we welcome Kathleen Heil as our guest author. Kathleen is a writer, translator, and dancer based in Berlin. Recent poems appear or are forthcoming in The New Yorker, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and B...

Forgetting and Remebering (by Martin Stannard)

(Gadzooks! How I adore English life!) Homage to Paul Violi Too often I forget how it begins in the morning and ends in the early night. I forget how I love the way I can wake up into a day and have a cup of coffee and stare into th...

ON TRANSLATING FROM THE CHINESE by Martin Stannard

Before you ask the obvious question, here’s the answer: yes, it’s really [insert expletive] difficult. But a while ago, having at that point been living and working in China three years, I sort of instinctively felt that part of what I...

Mitch Sisskind writes The Iliad! [with comments by David Lehman]

Iliad Old age, Tolstoy wrote, is the biggest surpriseIn a man's life. So true! Childhood hoursIn the ancient car I now recall, the hot months,Sox game on the radio, soporific Bob ElsonMumbling in the microphone, "Um, strike one,"And at ...

"Joe Soap's Canoe" reaches Central Park Lake

We hear from Martin Stannard, editor of Joe Soap's Canoe, that issues of the English print magazine that delighted pre-Inernet readers, are newly available on line. These issues contain interviews with New York School poets conducted by ...

Looking at China, from China (by Martin Stannard)

My university, above, but I don’t think you can see me. I live in China. I came here in 2005, and except for the 2007/8 academic year when I returned to England to take up a Writing Fellowship that had been held open for me I've worked...

Not Exactly E.R. by Martin Stannard

I'm sure you're not interested in my health, but I've been troubled for the past couple of months by the remnants of a cold, remnants that consist of what I took to be a minor infection on my chest. My nights have been troubled by a coug...

Looking at England, from China (by Martin Stannard)

Good morning. It's very pleasant to be here. I thought you might like to know all the latest poetry news, gossip, scandal and theoretical debates from British Poetry World. And I'm particularly well-placed to fill you in on all of this ...