Hating Poetry

Ben Lerner’s elegant, amusing essay turns on a distinction between Poetry and poems. Poetry is Caedmon’s dream, a virtual ideal that actual poems can’t live up to. “The fatal problem with poetry,” Lerner writes, is “poems.” Every poet is, inevitably, “a tragic figure.” Continue Reading »

Parable

“Virtue! a fig! ’tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our willsare gardeners.” —Othello, William Shakespeare “Virtue! A fig!” We grasp the hoe and dig.The dirt we turn is taken from ourselves.We chop the trunk and bough; then clip the . . . . Continue Reading »

Queen of the May

My Lady, Queen of Heaven, Queen of Earth,I weave for you a crown of white muguet.Delightful, fragrant, quiet bells of mirthI twine for Mary garlanded in May.Madonna, Fairest Flower of the Field,Of all God’s glories born from basest clay,A Lily of the Valley, Love revealed,I weave for you a rapture . . . . Continue Reading »

The Threat

Barabbas we can understand—a bit unhinged, but we have plannedfor that containable derangement,just as in the kind estrangementof Legion, as he styled himself,by the grave edge of a lakeside shelf.Aside from the price of swine, you see,that madman was dependably—well, mad. Our wars, our . . . . Continue Reading »

Your Grandmother's Verse

She writes it with a quill pen, so they say,On cream-smooth vellum (paper she refuses).A photo of three granddaughters at playSits on her desk to supplement the Muses.Her subjects? Cats, and apple pies, and toys;Quilted covers, macramé, and knitting;A nest of robin’s eggs, the happy noiseOf . . . . Continue Reading »

Conjuring a Son

Mom asks, “How’s your son?”every time I visit now.(I’ve never had one.)She asks it loudlysweetly crinkling eyes as ifshe knows I’ll proudlytell his latest news:Timmy learned to stand today—Tim can tie his shoes—(or should he be Hugh?)He’ll have dinner with you, Mom,soon as soccer’s . . . . Continue Reading »