re: billy collins’ “the monet condundrum”
I saw this little poem “The Monet Conundrum” by Billy Collins in the 2024 Best American Poetry anthology, and what I liked about it—alongside its simultaneous simplicity and complexity—is the question it asks. The speaker wants to know if every poem he writes is different from each other, or if they’re all the same poem, just expressed in different ways. I find this poignant because I wonder the same thing sometimes about the work I’ve written—the themes that come up again and again in my fiction, in my poetry, in my essays.
re: terrance hayes’ “american sonnet for my past and future assassin”
Terrance Hayes was one of the first poets I read. It was for an African-American Lit class in college, we read Wind in a Box, and I remember reading and re-reading those poems, discovering that poetry is not just the old school, dense stuff, the stuff that might be talking to me, but probably only by accident. Poetry is also this poet, talking directly to me. It caught me by surprise—this closeness. It made it almost impossible to not hear him, even after the book was done.
re: andrea gibson’s “TO MY LOVE ON THE DAY SHE DISCOVERED TUMBLR AND EVERY LOVE POEM I EVER WROTE TO EVERY WOMAN I LOVED BEFORE HER”
I was perusing a bookstore when I came across Pansy by Andrea Gibson. I’d just gone to an open mic in a bookstore that had been, in part, an ode to Gibson—how many people they touched with their work, how relatable and accessible the work felt. The host, before the mic began, said something like you don’t realize, when somebody passes, how much you’ll regret not getting new work from them. I’m going to miss their blog.