February 29, 2012

The Knower and the Sayer

February 29, 2012/ Jeffrey Eaton

Most criticism is reactive, but in his essay "The Poet," Ralph Waldo Emerson proved prophetic. He set a challenge and Walt Whitman took him up on it.

January 31, 2012

Wallace Stevens: A Spirit Storming

January 31, 2012/ Stephen Akey

Wallace Stevens, so long considered the driest and most cerebral of poets, can in fact touch the soul. It all hangs on the nature of poetry itself, what it is.

January 31, 2012

Recognizably Human: Larkin and the Sentimental

January 31, 2012/ Austin Allen

Nobody would accuse the mature Larkin of being a greeting card poet, and yet a warm and even vulnerable sentimentality bubbles up in his verse, often when it's least expected.