Tag Archives: 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 … Continue reading

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“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.”

Philip 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 … Continue reading

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

An 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 … Continue reading

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