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Poetry

Incident

We tell the story every year—
how we peered from the windows, shades drawn—
though nothing really happened,
the charred grass now green again.

Writing Life: Remaking a Norton Anthology

What redeems literary anthologists, if we're able to claim neither the creativity of the poet nor the analytic rigor of the cultural theorist? Having dedicated myself for years to constructing elaborate critical arguments, how did I get involved in what one of my friends called "pretheoretical" judgments about poem-gathering, a suspiciously curatorial practice in our supposedly post-canonical era?

Boomlay, Boomlay, Boomlay, BLOOM

The poems I have chosen to memorize over the years answer to an odd mixture of social occasions and opportunities. When asked to perform a poem at nonacademic parties, I have found Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," not among the poems Harold Bloom includes in The Best Poems of the English Language (2004), to serve me best.

Addressed to Her

On seeing you that second time last night,
Pat Benatar a disembodied blare
amidst a night yet ravenous for dares,
I thought I’d talk to you, to ask you why

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