Tag: Pulitzer Prize for poetry

“I stand here coiled in orbits, head to foot, because this tilted world is where I live.”

The great poet Henry Taylor must have been in a cranky mood when he compiled this collection of 100 poems that span his 50-year career. Taylor chose not to follow the convention of inviting a respected peer to write an introduction; he selected a cover that makes it look like … Read More

“I had had a dream, and that dream was a warning of what might happen to me if I rejected what I’d been and who I was.”

Levine 3Philip Levine’s essay “Entering Poetry,” describes the day he began writing about the people he had worked with in Detroit auto factories.  “When I closed my eyes and looked into the past, I did not see the blazing color of the forges of nightmare or the torn faces of … Read More

“However carved up or pared down we get, we keep on making the best of it…”

RyanJPGAn extra punch — which distinguishes the extraordinary poetry of Kay Ryan — hits us in the title poem in this collection, “The Best of It.” At first, it seems that she’s telling us to make do, but then the poem gets darker, and then we realize that she’s … Read More