Writing and Teaching in a Time of Crisis with Kay Ulanday Barrett
Kay Ulanday Barrett describes June Jordan’s legacy and their mission as “a transgender brown poet and educator to imagine beyond hazardous constraints of binaries.”
Category: Close Readings
Petrarch’s Hangover: An Argument in Five Sonnets
By Monica Youn
Posted Feb 7, 2019
An exploration of disproportion in the Petrarchan sonnet structure, looking at a James Joyce-designed necklace and poetry from the 14th century to the present.
Poetry of the City with Victor Hernández Cruz
By Rigoberto González
Posted Jan 31, 2019
An exploration of “the collusion and collision of peoples and cultures” in the poetry of Victor Hernández Cruz.
Poetry of the City with Cynthia Cruz
By Rigoberto González
Posted Jan 24, 2019
A look at a poem by Cynthia Cruz, who uses “the fragment and a truncated rhythm” to depict a speaker at odds with a city’s opulence.
Poetry of the City with Federico García Lorca
By Rigoberto González
Posted Jan 18, 2019
A look at Federico García Lorca’s poem “City That Does Not Sleep” and its “bleak critique of modernity and capitalism.”
Poetry of the City with C. P. Cavafy
By Rigoberto González
Posted Jan 10, 2019
An examination of a poem by C. P. Cavafy in which “the city triggers memory, keeps receipts, and preserves the details of personal tragedy and transgression.”
Poetry of the City with Walt Whitman
By Rigoberto González
Posted Jan 2, 2019
Rigoberto González explores the poem “Mannahatta,” Whitman’s ode to “a skyline made of iron and cement.”
Poetry of the City with Percy Bysshe Shelley
By Rigoberto González
Posted Dec 27, 2018
A look at Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias” as a cautionary tale of the end of a great king and his empire.
Transforming Nature with Tommy Pico
By Carl Phillips
Posted Dec 17, 2018
A look at how Tommy Pico reveals “stereotypes about a culture’s relationship to nature” in his book-length Nature Poem.
Transforming Nature with Marilyn Nelson
By Carl Phillips
Posted Dec 12, 2018
Carl Phillips looks at how Marilyn Nelson presents “a racialized landscape” in her poem “My Grandfather Walks in the Woods.”