Top Ten List for "One Poet's Notes"

As a glimpse at the archive totals in the sidebar on this page will indicate, with this week’s entries “One Poet’s Notes” has moved beyond the first 100 posts to the blog. In my Thanksgiving message I outlined the growth in readership and the many rewarding responses received from readers since the initiation of “One Poet’s Notes” in mid-January. Once again, I thank readers of Valparaiso Poetry Review and “One Poet’s Notes” for their continuing support and encouragement.

Additionally, in a brief look back at the recent issues, literary topics, news articles, poets, poems, and reviews included or discussed during the first 100 posts to “One Poet’s Notes,” I have been pleased to notice readers’ interest in a wide array of entries, measured by the site meter statistics of viewers’ entry pages and frequently visited items, as well as the most popular subjects sought by those entering the blog through web search engines.

Therefore, as a re-introduction and an invitation to new readers who would like to browse through those most visited pages of the past posts on “One Poet’s Notes,” I submit the following “top ten list” of titles viewed (determined solely according to frequency figures) by users of “One Poet’s Notes” beyond the usual entry points of the blog’s main page or the most recently posted item.

1. Theodore Roethke: “My Papa’s Waltz”
2. John Ashbery: “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror”
3. Charles Simic: MY NOISELESS ENTOURAGE
4. Charles Wright: SCAR TISSUE
5. Elizabeth Bishop: The Poet’s Voice
6. Philip Levine: BREATH
7. Veterans Day: Brian Turner’s “Here, Bullet”
8. Ellen Bryant Voigt: MESSENGER: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS 1976-2006
9. James Dickey: “The Firebombing”
10. Major Jackson: HOOPS

In addition to visiting these popular pages, I urge readers to browse through the archives of the first 100 posts to “One Poet’s Notes” and discover other items they might find interesting and deserving of renewed attention.

William Blake and Allen Ginsberg

On this date 250 years ago William Blake was born at 28 Broad Street in Carnaby Market, London. From the time he was a boy, his primary training was as an engraver and illustrator. When he was a child, Blake also claimed to have had mystical visions of God and of angels. Later, sitting by his brother’s deathbed, Blake declared he witnessed his brother’s spirit rise toward the ceiling, clapping his hands in exaltation.

Blake’s talent as a visual artist combined with his unrestrained imagination and a strong lyrical sense led to powerful poetry readers have found compelling over the centuries. Indeed, Blake’s influence reached right into the world of contemporary American poetry, primarily through the writings of Allen Ginsberg.

In 1948, during his early twenties, Allen Ginsberg claimed to have had a vision of his own during which Blake spoke his poems to the young man. Relating the experience, Ginsberg explained feeling serenity, “that there was this big god over all, who was completely conscious of everybody, and that the whole purpose of being born was to wake up to Him.” Ginsberg reported: “I wasn’t even reading, my eye was idling over the page of ‘Ah, Sun-flower,’ and it suddenly appeared—the poem I’d read a lot of times before.” The voice he assumed was Blake’s sounded “like God has a human voice, with all the infinite tenderness and anciency and mortal gravity of a living Creator speaking to his son.”

Eventually, Blake’s inspiration, along with other contributing guidance by the works of Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams, prompted Ginsberg to composition of his most influential poems, including “Howl,” that helped direct the course of contemporary American poetry in the last half of the twentieth century and beyond.

Larry D. Thomas: "Goldfish"

The VPR Poem of the Week is “Goldfish” by Larry D. Thomas, which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2002-2003 issue (Volume IV, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Larry D. Thomas has had five collections of poetry published. His first book of poems, The Lighthouse Keeper (Timberline Press, 2000), was selected as a pick by the Small Press Review. Amazing Grace was awarded the Texas Review Poetry Prize and published by Texas Review Press in 2001. The Woodlanders (Pecan Grove Press, 2002) received a Violet Crown Book Awards Citation from the Writers’ League of Texas, and Where Skulls Speak Wind (Texas Review Press, 2004) won the Texas Review Poetry Award and the Violet Crown Book Award. Timberline Press published Stark Beauty in 2005, and it was the First Runner-Up for the 2006 Western Heritage Award.

His poetry also has appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines, including Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Christian Science Monitor, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Louisiana Literature, Midwest Quarterly, Poet Lore, Puerto del Sol, Southwest Review, Texas Review and Webster Review. Readers can listen to Larry D. Thomas reading his poetry at a page on his website. Most recently, he has been chosen the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an exceptional work by a poet selected from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Pushcart Prize Nominations from VPR

In December, Pushcart Press will be releasing its 32nd edition of small press literary selections, The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. Since 1976, editor Bill Henderson has brought added recognition to the many fine small presses and literary journals publishing quality material with his annual anthology distributed by W.W. Norton. Writers whose early works were first highlighted in the pages of the series’ volumes include Charles Baxter, Raymond Carver, Joshua Clover, Andres Dubus, John Irving, Philip Levine, Philip Lopate, Susan Minot, Paul Muldoon, Tim O’Brien, Jayne Anne Phillips, Mona Simpson, and many others.

To honor his efforts during more than 30 years of publishing the anthology, the National Book Critics Circle presented Bill Henderson with their Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received the Poets & Writers/Barnes and Noble Writers for Writers Prize. In addition, the Pushcart Prize anthology has been chosen by the New York Times Book Review as a “Notable Book of the Year” on multiple occasions.

However, only in recent volumes has the nomination process for the Pushcart Prize been opened to online journals and their editors. I applaud this move, and I encourage further acknowledgment of the high quality of writing found in many electronic publications. Therefore, I am pleased to offer the six works listed below as nominees from Valparaiso Poetry Review for the Pushcart Prize, perhaps also signaling one way to express VPR’s support for the inclusion of pieces from electronic magazines for consideration in the anthology.

As I have mentioned in the past when nominating works from Valparaiso Poetry Review for the additional recognition of an award or further publication in any “best of” anthology, I value all the poems and depend on all the poets in VPR. Therefore, such decisions are not easy. Yet, I welcome the admirable efforts of the Pushcart Press and Bill Henderson to bring attention to the excellent literary works found in small presses and journals. Moreover, I am pleased when an opportunity arises for a few of VPR’s splendid poets to reach a larger audience and find the greater recognition they deserve through possible inclusion in such an anthology.

I am proud to announce the six following poems represent the nominees from the 2007 issues of Valparaiso Poetry Review to be considered for inclusion in the next volume of The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, which will be published in December 2008:

PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINEES FROM 2007 ISSUES OF VPR


John Balaban: “Finishing Up the Novel After Some Delay”

Barbara Crooker: “Lemons”

W.D. Ehrhart: “Coaching Winter Track in Time of War”

Anne Haines: “Swallowed”

H. Palmer Hall: “Vietnam Roulette”

Diane Lockward: “Temptation by Water”

I congratulate each of the poets, and I wish to express my appreciation to all the contributors whose works have appeared in VPR this past year.

Thanksgiving Offering

In this season for giving thanks, I am grateful to all who regularly have been reading “One Poet’s Notes” by conveniently subscribing or by returning repeatedly to examine added items, and I welcome the many new readers who have found their way to this website in recent months.

As the Valparaiso Poetry Review editor’s blog nears its 100th post, weekly readership has multiplied numerous times, month after month, since its initial presentation in January. Although this site has not been designed to draw the large audiences some other popular or literary sites admirably achieve, I appreciate the increased numbers indicating an ever-growing readership with monthly totals of visits to VPR and “One Poet’s Notes” combined apparently now averaging almost 6,000, a modest figure that nevertheless has been increasing steadily over time.

I am indebted to many readers for their kind messages containing complimentary comments and continually supportive statements about the blog’s content or its form. As well, I am pleased to report there have been many emails over the months communicating notes of praise for the individual works of various poets highlighted by the blog from the contents of Valparaiso Poetry Review’s archives of the past nine years. I especially would like to acknowledge again the fine contributions by all those poets.

Readers also have corresponded with pieces of feedback that often single out for comment books reviewed in VPR or on the blog throughout the year—some first books by poets they were pleased to discover and other volumes written by familiar authors they report being delighted to rediscover. Additionally, I have enjoyed hearing from readers and learning differing perspectives about literary issues raised or discussed in some posts.

Consequently, I wish each of you a happy holiday weekend. I hope you will continue to visit in the future to find interesting and informative writings. Finally, as a token of my appreciation to all, on this one occasion I humbly offer a timely poem of my own:

THANKSGIVING: BEFORE LEAVING FOR HOME


I

At first, one row of clouds fell below that nearby
mountain ridge and we could feel the swift wind

of winter’s initial cold front suddenly sweeping
across a gray field, still darkened by their stain,

or throwing about those leaves blowing like snow
into drifts along the ground all around our rented

house; even today, we know there is no way this
day will ever recede very far from our memories.


II

Not much more than a few hours earlier, you
and I had again awakened long before morning’s

sunrise, though our windows were then whitened
by moonlight, to the sound of our young son’s

cries for someone to come to him. As if those
roaming shadows that had emerged were thieves,

he’d felt loss move through his room from dresser
to desk to chest; an absence had already taken place.


III

Who knew the hospital would be so far away?
Beneath black branches, wind-thinned and arching

overhead, almost as dark as those cavern walls
we’d visited earlier in our vacation, a stark road

wound around the edge of town, coiling toward
some distant hint of morning light just beginning

to glint up ahead; at last, with each shallow swallow
he’d breathe, we now could see how close we were.

[“Thanksgiving: Before Leaving for Home” was first published in Connecticut Review, and it is among the poems that will be included in my forthcoming collection, Seeded Light, to be released by Turning Point Books.]

Jeff Knorr: "Winter Turkeys"

The VPR Poem of the Week is “Winter Turkeys” by Jeff Knorr, which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2003-2004 issue (Volume V, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Jeff Knorr is the author of two books of poetry, Standing Up to the Day (Pecan Grove Press, 1999) and The Third Body (Cherry Grove Collections, 2007), as well as a collection of essays and poems, Keeper (Mammoth Books, 2004). His other works include: Mooring Against the Tide: Writing Poetry and Fiction (Prentice Hall, 2000), which he co-authored with Tim Schell; an anthology he edited titled A Writer's Country (Prentice Hall, 2000); and The River Sings: An Introduction to Poetry (Prentice Hall, 2003). He is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Sacramento City College.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an exceptional work by a poet selected from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Poetic Prose: "The Gettysburg Address"

Perhaps not a poem, "The Gettysburg Address" is one of the most poetic pieces of prose written in American history, and Abraham Lincoln delivered his speech on this date in 1863, sevenscore and four years ago. [Click on image to enlarge.]

Painting, Poetry, and Economy: Rothko, Warhol, and Ashbery

Lately, there have been a couple of items in the news tying poetry to sums of money larger than anyone ever would have associated with the literary form. In its November 12 edition, the New York Times presented an article updating the Modern Poetry Association’s handling of its $100 million gift from Ruth Lilly received exactly five years ago. The grant, now valued at about $200 million, served as a windfall for Poetry magazine and the Poetry Foundation (the new title of the organization); however, such riches emphasized even more the comparative lack of funding or monetary compensation in the field of poetry, as well as the paltry profits, if any, literary journals or poetry books produce.

David Fenza, executive director of the Associated Writing Programs, was quoted by the Times as responding at the time of the grant with some shock and concern about all that money going to one journal: “The problem was, the field is so poor. It’s safe to say the initial disappointment about the grant going all to one entity was huge. The fact that the Poetry board decided not to be a grant-making organization just threw salt in the wound.”

This weekend another news story reports that the estate of Catherine Perrine (wife of Laurence Perrine, the late Southern Methodist University professor and author of popular classroom textbooks on creative writing, particularly his introduction to poetry writing, Sound and Sense) has made a bequest of $3.3 million for SMU to establish an endowed chair in creative writing and to initiate scholarship funds that would benefit English majors.

Repeatedly in my writings and teaching over the years I have emphasized connections between paintings and poetry, as well as artists and authors. I have suggested the poet’s approach to writing lyrical lines frequently reflects a painter’s perspective when framing an image with brush strokes on his or her canvas. Indeed, I expanded a bit on this topic in a previous post at “One Poet’s Notes,” and I continue to believe these art forms exhibit some common concerns.

Yet, this past week’s news reminded me again of a notable difference between poetry and painting. The economic conditions in which the two arts exist are worlds apart. The sums of money mentioned above that are so surprising when associated with poetry seem commonplace when speaking of paintings.

The great gap between society’s expressed material value for paintings as opposed to the apparent lack of monetary status given to poems once more appeared on display last week when Christie’s auctioned a group of post-World War II and contemporary art pieces, selling the works for a total of $325 million. One typical Mark Rothko abstract, Untitled (Red, Blue, Orange), sold for more than $34 million, reminding many of another Rothko work, White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) [pictured above], that brought a return of nearly $73 million only six months ago. In the same sale last spring an Andy Warhol painting, Green Car Crash, was bought for nearly $72 million, and last week another Warhol work—Liz (pictured below), one of his series of Elizabeth Taylor portraits—garnered $23.5 million.

As I read the almost unfathomable figures in the prices paid for these paintings, I recalled observations poet John Ashbery had written in his role as an art critic about this pair of painters decades ago. Ashbery reviewed an exhibit of abstract expressionist paintings at New York’s Whitney Museum in 1978 that included pieces by Mark Rothko, about whom Ashbery reported his “stated intentions have proved frustrating to many who respond readily to his walls of vibrant light and color. He intended the color to convey ‘basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom . . .. The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point.’”

Ashbery went on to suggest an artist’s connection with the poetic process—perhaps at the same time also revealing in the mix some personal perspective on writing his own poetry and his expectations of readers’ responses to his poems—when he offered that “any art, once it leaves the studio, is going to be misinterpreted for better or worse—‘misprision’ is the term used by Harold Bloom for our fertile misunderstanding of the poet’s aims. It often seems that the artist’s role is precisely to make himself misunderstood, that misunderstanding and appreciation are much the same. But Rothko’s repeated and vehement caveats leave us uneasy. We are always a little bit embarrassed at esteeming his work for wrong reasons that he foresaw and continually warned against.”

Ashbery concluded about Rothko’s artworks: “The effect of these pictures is truly majestic and awe-inspiring, though the awe is of a secular and aesthetic kind. Or rather, one can feel, without sharing it, the religious experience that was color manifesting itself to the painter.”

Similarly, Ashbery commented on Andy Warhol’s first exhibit in Paris in 1965, again using a literary comparison when declaring the artist was “causing the biggest transatlantic fuss since Oscar Wilde brought culture to Buffalo in the nineties.” Ashbery explained how Warhol’s “opening broke all attendance records at the Galerie Ileana Sonnabend.” Describing Warhol as “a shy, pleasant fellow with dark glasses and a mop of prematurely gray hair,” Ashbery remarked: “Warhol seems surprised and slightly bored by his success.”

Considering the hundreds of millions paid for his art in recent years, one wonders how much more surprised Warhol might be today. Yet, one suspects he’d not be as surprised as those of us reading with pleasure—even if for some cited in the Times article it might be mixed pleasure—this week’s news, witnessing millions of dollars suddenly attached to poetry projects or creative writing endowments. Still, I would be curious to see how much original manuscript pages of Ashbery’s poetry could fetch at auction, perhaps pages from one of the most prominent and much celebrated contemporary poems, “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” which, as I have discussed previously, successfully blended perspectives in poetry and painting, but economically would never be seen as valuable on a par with prominent contemporary paintings.

Robert Hass: Imagination and the Image

Maxianne Berger: "Exposure"

The VPR Poem of the Week is “Exposure” by Maxianne Berger, which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2000-2001 issue (Volume II, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

“Exposure” was included in Maxianne Berger’s first book, How We Negotiate, released in 1999 by Empyreal Press (Montreal). A French version, titled Compromis and translated by Florence Buathier, was published by Écrits des forges (Trois Riviéres) in 2006. Her new collection of poems, Dismantled Secrets, is forthcoming from Wolsak and Wynn (Hamilton, Ontario) in the spring of 2008. In 2003, with Angela Leuck, she co-edited the anthology Sun Through the Blinds: Montreal Haiku Today, published by Shoreline Press.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an exceptional work by a poet selected from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Veterans Day: Brian Turner's "Here, Bullet"

In last Week’s Sunday Times, an article titled “Battlefield Salvos” addressed a question about the apparent lack of accomplished poetry written by soldiers active in current war zones. Of course, many readers are familiar with soldier-poets from past wars. The article cites Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon as examples from World War I. In a recent post here at “One Poet’s Notes” James Dickey’s World War II poetry, particularly “The Firebombing,” was highlighted, as was Richard Hugo’s “Letter to Simic from Boulder,” concerning Hugo’s participation in bombing runs over European cities during the Second World War. In addition, the current issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review includes W.D. Ehrhart and H. Palmer Hall, poets who served in Vietnam, and the issue features John Balaban, a conscientious objector who chose to serve in Vietnam as a civilian. Other notable contemporary poets who were among the military in Vietnam would include Bruce Weigl and Yusef Komunyakaa.

However, thus far the production of well-written poetry from service members in our contemporary conflicts seems limited. The Sunday Times author offers one explanation: “The poets of the first world war were serious writers operating at the very limit of human experience and sent back first-hand literary reports. It’s difficult to imagine an equivalent situation ever reoccurring, at least in the West. Most of the poets I know would think twice before setting a mousetrap, let alone enlisting for active service.”

Nevertheless, the article correctly identifies one prominent new soldier-poet who has received praise for his first book of poems: “True, Brian Turner, the American soldier with the creative writing MA, published a volume of war poetry that goes far beyond the hobbyist poetry that most people write at some time in their lives, especially to express sadness or loss, but he is the exception who proves the rule.” The newspaper’s mention of Brian Turner is seconded by a comment at the end of its article in the online edition by fellow blogger Andrew Shields, who offers his recommendation of Here, Bullet, Turner’s first volume of poems, and who also posted this video to his blog.

As I previously indicated in my January review of Here, Bullet at “One Poet’s Notes,” Brian Turner’s powerful collection of poetry arising from his experiences as a soldier provides readers with excellent and engaging perspectives of combat or conflicted emotions sometimes felt by soldiers seeing active duty on the contemporary war front. As I noted in that review, Turner served seven years in the U.S. Army, including tours of duty in Bosnia-Herzegovina and then Iraq, and he also is an MFA graduate from the University of Oregon’s creative writing program.

Therefore, on this Veterans Day weekend, I again recommend to readers Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet (Alice James Books, 2005), and I include his reading of the book’s compelling title poem:

HERE, BULLET

If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue’s explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.

To hear more of Turner reading his poems and being interviewed, I suggest visiting the excellent page devoted to Brian Turner at the From the Fishouse web site.

Figuring the Numbers: Poetry, Gender, and VPR

During the last week a few posts at the Poetry Foundation’s blog, “Harriet,” named for the female founder of Poetry, have engendered (pun intended) lively discussion and an increased activity that has reached to other blogs as well. The original commentaries reference articles appearing in the current issue of Chicago Review that examine proportional representation of males and females among the poets included in leading mainstream literary journals or more experimental magazines. The numbers suggest to some that a continuing bias against female poets may exist in most of these publications. Other commentators offer possible alternative reasons for a disparity in the numbers.

I have enjoyed reading the various opinions on this issue shared by the Poetry Foundation bloggers and others. I commend those engaged in the conversation, and I find the comments enlightening; although, quite frankly I have not reached a conclusion of my own. In fact, as much as this topic has initiated interesting discussion, I am not fully convinced of how critical the more recent figures compiled in this issue may be. Looking at the statistical evidence presented by one of the tables printed in an article titled “Poetry Magazines & Women Poets,” I see numbers that are curious and raise legitimate questions, though do not appear overly disturbing.

For instance, the 2005 ratio of female representation by poets in the following journals does not seem too much out of line: Conjunctions, 45%; Fence, 48%; Paris Review, 41%; Poetry, 40%; Southern Review, 48%; and Tri-Quarterly, 53%. The 2005 numbers for a few journals, like Chicago Review (37%), The Nation (30%), New American Writing (39%), and The New Yorker (34%), are lower but could be considered only a snapshot—The Nation’s previous yearly statistic in the table is 43%—or could be explained by additional factors. As an example, perhaps many poets who appear in The New Yorker are those considered more established, a pool of poets disproportionately populated by male authors from an older generation, a time when bias clearly created a gender imbalance among those writers finding publication. Also, one must remember that some of these journals have female editors who would be less likely to engage in bias against women in their decision-making process.

In any case, discussion of this issue should continue. The conversation already has been beneficial, causing me to look at the numbers for Valparaiso Poetry Review and to figure the breakdown of contributors by gender, something I’d never done before. In the nine years of VPR, no work has ever been accepted because of a poet’s gender, nor has rejection of any piece been influenced by the author’s gender. The same could be said for other categories, such as race, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation, or geographical location.

Indeed, usually these characteristics could not be known during the consideration of submissions for publication in VPR. Nevertheless, a tally of the poetry selected for Valparaiso Poetry Review during its nine-year history reveals the following surprisingly precise result. I have figured out that the nine volumes of VPR include 368 poems, 184 written by males and 184 written by females—oddly enough, exactly 50% each.

A few observers have put forward a difference in the numbers of submissions to some literary journals by male and female poets as one possible explanation for the lower percentage of women poets represented in their pages. I don’t know if this could be verified to any great extent because journals normally do not keep such statistics for their submissions. Certainly, VPR has never divided its tens of thousands of submissions over the years into any categories at all.

However, for the sake of this research, through examination of the nearly 500 pending submissions received in the last month or so and currently on hand for consideration, the figures again display an almost equal balance: male 49.8%, female 50.2%. (The gender of a few poets submitting work could not be determined because first names were ambiguous or were replaced by initials.) These numbers might suggest that the gender representation in VPR accurately reflects the gender percentages evidenced in overall submissions to the journal.

Nevertheless, as always, the only figures that will matter when works are chosen for publication in Valparaiso Poetry Review will be the figures of speech within the poems and other significant, iconic, or symbolic figures used by the poets. Perhaps even on the rare occasion a number itself and the actual word “figure” might appear, such as in this well-known poem with its ironic title:

THE GREAT FIGURE

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
fire truck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.

—William Carlos Williams

For further enjoyment, readers can view an interpretive video clip of “The Great Figure” from the William Carlos Williams episode in the Voices & Vision series at a page on the Annenberg Media Multimedia Collection web site.

Daniel Henry: "Jumpshots in the Dark"

With the beginning of November comes the start of basketball season in the NBA and on college campuses, as well as earlier darkness each evening because of the switch from Daylight-Saving Time. Therefore, it only seems appropriate the selection for VPR Poem of the Week from the journal’s archives is “Jumpshots in the Dark” by Daniel Henry, which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2001-2002 issue (Volume III, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review. This poem seems particularly timely here in Valparaiso, Indiana, where we commence a season during which we will be commemorating the tenth anniversary of “The Shot” by Bryce Drew, a game-winning moment replayed every year during the NCAA championship tournament as one of the highlights in tourney history.


Daniel Henry’s poetry publications include work in English Journal and Yankee Magazine. He also has published a number of scholarly articles in national magazines.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an exceptional work by a poet selected from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.

Kathleen Flenniken: FAMOUS

The recently released Fall/Winter 2007-2008 issue (Volume IX, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review includes a review by Diane Lockward of Kathleen Flenniken’s Famous. A brief excerpt from the beginning of this review follows below.

* * * * *

Kathleen Flenniken must have thought 2005 was her own anno mirabilis. First she won a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship, a rare achievement for a poet without a book. That gap, however, was soon filled when she won the prestigious Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. Everyone knows that poetry book contests are highly competitive, some attracting as many as 1000 entries. The odds of winning are slim, and yet someone wins. How? Why this book and not those others? A close look at Flenniken’s Famous might reveal some answers.

Famous is initially distinguished by its organizational integrity. Flenniken gives us not merely a bunch of good poems but a collection of them, that is, poems artistically arranged into a unified whole. She divides her fifty-one poems into three sections: “Minor Characters,” “Minor Celebrities,” and “Fame.” As these headings suggest, her overarching concern is our tenuous relationship to fame . . ..

* * * * *

Readers are encouraged to visit Valparaiso Poetry Review to examine the entire Lockward review and all the other reviews, poems, and articles contained in the journal’s new issue, as well as VPR’s past issues listed in the archives, particularly the Spring/Summer 2007 issue (Volume VIII, Number 2) that included Diane Lockward as its featured poet.