Word: poem
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...inspired by the destruction of her home in St. Croix, Virgin Islands by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. In her introduction, she writes that in revising she kept two questions before her: "first, What did I want my readers to feel? and second, What was the work of this poem (its task in the world)?" The varying answers to these questions are apparent in every poem; a passion and sense of history shine through like "a molten hot light...
...feminist role model she isn't. Pinning any feminist hopes on a First Lady is a mistake. The Quarterly's poem may declare Hillary a statue of liberty ("she lifts her torch/to all women: "Don't just sit on the porch--"), but she is hardly a NOW poster child...
...final poem, the lengthy "Requiem" touched on the title of the evening's performance. Bloom told the audience that this moving poem was preserved in the memory of women for 25 years before being written down. "Requiem" spoke of the silence of the hundreds of women waiting in line behind closed gates to see their sons. That it was read last Wednesday was clear evidence that the voices of silenced women were finally ringing...
...also been known to party hearty, but in his soul he may be a wonk. He is no more afraid to be square in his musical taste (his favorite sax player -- Kenny G?) than Maya Angelou was to be passionate, politically correct and perfectly understood in her Inaugural Day poem. At 13 balls that night, Clinton was like the college grind who drops in on frat bashes the night before the exam to show he's one of the guys, then sneaks back to his dorm to cram. Perhaps there is as much Nixon in him (the ambition, the intellect...
Cookies, crazily, "must" be passed; one must behave as if in a classroom, to be playful and attentive, for the other thing--the end we aren't ready for--will overtake us if we fail to maintain our childlike interests. (Ashbery's most optimistic poems usually take place indoors, in safety, in environments which preclude endlessness.) The same blending of the scholar's voice with the inquiring child's takes over in this book's most triumphant poem, "Notes From...