"It is leviathan and we in its belly"
Herbert, Celan, Ritsos, Walcott, Berssenbrugge, Levertov, Coleman, Holub
Zbigniew Herbert (trans. Alissa Valles):
Paul Celan (trans. Pierre Joris):
Yannis Ritsos (trans. Kimon Friar):
Hilton Als:
When I asked Walcott about the use of free verse in poetry, he was disdainful.
Derek Walcott:
What’s free about it? As if the self is enough to make a poem. What makes a poem is the discipline inherent in making a poem. Trying to fit feelings in the requisite number of syllables and lines, disciplining one’s feelings. The concept of song has been out of contemporary poetry for a long while. And all those attributes, like rhyme, complexity, or rigidity of meters, have gone. If music goes out of language, then you are in bad trouble.
Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge:
Denise Levertov:
Wanda Coleman:
Miroslav Holub (trans. Dana Hábová and David Young):
About Sean SingerÂ
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.