In The Poetry

I now feel any time I read a new book and put it on this mental shelf that another book is kind of being pushed off so that there’s just a little shelf space left there. And that’s the way it starts at least – it’s called ‘Forgetfulness’.

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first [...]

I’m very reader-conscious and, I hope, reader friendly and sometimes when I have very little to say which is really the best time to write for me…When I was a young poet I had lots of stuff to say and then I found out that these things had been said much better, and then I [...]

Here’s a slightly more formal poem – it’s a sonnet of some kind, it’s not in that book. But I mention…you remember Petrarch who’s kind of one of the Italian founders of the sonnet and I mention his sweetheart, Laura, to whom he addressed all of his love sonnets. And I just call the poem [...]

I’m going to close with a poem I like to end with sometimes – it’s called ‘Night Club’ and it just makes a little reference to a singer named Johnny Hartman – I hope probably many of you know him. A singer most famous for jazz ballads and also famous in recording history for doing [...]