"Climb into a jar"
Frankenthaler, Howe, Hayden, Tranströmer, Merton, Dove
Helen Frankenthaler:
You have to know how to use the accident, how to recognize it, how to control it, and ways to eliminate it so that the whole surface looks felt and born all at once.
Susan Howe:
Robert Hayden:
Emily Dickinson:
Susan is a / vast and sweet / Sister, and / Emily hopes to / deserve her, / but not now—
[written sideways on top of page]: Thanks / for the / profligate / little Box / that lacked / only / Cigars.
Tomas Tranströmer (trans. Robin Fulton):
Thomas Merton:
In the continual vroom vroom vroom of the guitars we must learn a new kind of stubbornness.
Rita Dove:
About Sean Singer
Sean Singer Editorial Services
Subscribe to The Sharpener
The paid-subscriber version of The Sharpener includes craft pieces on literary fixes, deep dives into poets on their birthdays and memorials, information about professional literacy and labor issues for writers, and detailed citations and analyses of the poems I’m reading.