I struggle with poetry. Reading it never has the same effect as listening to it, even when I read it aloud to myself. But, since April is National Poetry Month I thought I’d give it another shot. In an example of past me having current me’s back, one of the books I picked out for last year’s Read Harder challenge that I never got to was No Matter the Wreckage by Sarah Kay and it is a book of poems. I don’t know how I […]
Poems from a Renaissance Man
In honor of National Poetry Month, I have reviewed several collections of poetry throughout April. You can also read my reviews of Michael Gilmore, Billy Collins, and Jack Kerouac. John Koblas was a renaissance man. He was a doo-wop musician, an historian, an author, a consultant for the History Channel and PBS, a script-writer, and also a poet. In other words, he was an interesting man. He died in 2013, a mere two years after Letters from the Moon was published. Death is an important […]
the soul burns out the eyes
Reading Pomes All Sizes feels like watching Birdman or Whiplash. It’s drunk, jubilant, sweaty. The collection is manic, exhilarating, confusing, fun, heartbeating, a little sad. You’ll find friend poems, wine poems, God and Buddha poems, and a few poems about girls. The subject matter isn’t that different from a hundred other poets, but the delivery is something else. Kerouac’s voice and playfulness and mindfulness read unlike so much of what came before. For me, it just rings clear like a bell through shelves of mumbling, […]
Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love.
In honor of National Poetry Month, I am reading and review books of poetry. Last week, I read fellow Austinite Michael Gilmore’s Restless Astronomy. This week, I am reviewing Billy Collins’ Picnic Lightning. The book came out in 1998, but I received my copy around 2005. My college roommate, a mountain man/physicist/poet, gave me the book as a birthday gift. (He also gave me Heart of Darkness; what this says about our relationship I do not know.) As far as poets go, Billy Collins is […]