The Best American Poetry

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

I thought of this comic when I was reading The Paris Review article by David Orr on "The Road Not Taken," that suggests this often quoted poem is one of the most misread poems in the country. NA

 

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

 

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

I had to laugh out loud when I was reading State of the Art by David Lehman, and I came across this quote from Nicholoson Baker's The Anthologist. 

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

In his wonderful book, State of the Art, David Lehman writes: 

After observing that "every revolution in poetry" is at base "a return to common speech," T.S. Eliot in "The Music of Poetry" (1942) goes on to give the rationale for this sort of "talk poetry": "No poetry, of course, is ever exactly the same speech that the poet talks and hears" but it has to be in such a relation to the speech of his time that the listener or reader can say 'that is how I should talk if I could talk poetry.''

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

In The State of the Art, David Lehman writes: "Whitman recalls the moment when, as a boy alone on the shore of Long Island, he heard two mockingbirds sing, and then one stopped singing and the other missed his mate and sang elegiac songs to her, and suddenly Whitman understood his purpose in life, "what I am for." 

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

The inspiration for this comic comes from Chapter 2011 in David Lehman's State of the Art in which he quotes famous poets' definitions of great poetry.  I have the woman in the comic quoting Stevens.  The man is quoting Whitman.

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

In her brilliant introduction to State of the Art (Pittsburgh, 2015) by  David Lehman, Denise Duhamel writes: David takes his cue from Charles Baudelaire who advised, "Always be a poet, even in prose."  I love that quote--it sounds so sexy yet true.

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

Today's comic was once again inspired by a Chapter 2011 in David Lehman's State of the Art (Pittsburgh, 2015) in which David quotes famous poets' definitions of poetry. He includes this wonderful quote from Gertrude Stein:  "Poetry is nothing but using losing refusing and pleasing and betraying and caressing nouns." NA

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

(ed note: This comic comes to you on Tuesday because of the Memorial Day weekend. sdh)

This comic was inspired by Chapter 1997 in David Lehman's, State of the Art, in which he compares these two translations. He writes:

So profound is the difference that the concurrent appearance of the two translations seemed itself to constitute a literary event--an ambiguous parable that could yield lessons ranging from the familiar ('"poetry is what is lost in translation'") to the paradoxical ('"poetry is mistranslation").

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

Today's comic is from the last line of Shelley's "Epipsychidion," of which David Lehman writes in The State of the Art: "Just as Shelley's outburst of self pity can blunt the wondrous force of his enjambed couplets, so the unsavory facts of his personal life (he abandoned the young bride, who committed suicide) have acted as a check on a young poet's enthusiasm for the author of 'Ode to the West Wind,' 'Ozymandias,' and 'The Triumph of Life.'"  NA

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

Today's comic is inspired by Chapter 2013 in David Lehman's The State of the Art, which features Shelley's poem, "The Dreariest Journey. " David points out that the poem "is a remarkable statement even for a century whose novelists subjected the institution of marriage to unprecedented scorn."  NA

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

Inspired by "[Poetry] strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bear the naked and sleeping beauty which is the spirit of its forms.” Shelley

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

2015 (c) Nin Andrews

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

(c) Nin Andrews 2015

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews

Monday Comic by Nin Andrews