by gsfrnkln | May 31, 2025 | Uncategorized
Joseph Brodsky declared to his students that there are “two areas to which democracy does not apply: one, the sciences because that would equate knowledge with ignorance, and two, the arts, because that would equate masterpieces with garbage.” As I recall, Brodsky...
by gsfrnkln | May 21, 2025 | Uncategorized
It’s not easy to publish poetry of any kind, and there is little agreement between editors (and readers) about what constitutes “good” poetry. With that in mind, congratulations to anyone whose poem is chosen for publication by a magazine or anthology. If your...
by gsfrnkln | Jan 28, 2025 | Uncategorized
The difficulty of thinking about poetry as a kind of writing is the temptation to define it as words put into meter or some other structure. This tells us very little and is immediately contradicted by forms like prose poems. We already understand that poetry is...
by gsfrnkln | Nov 26, 2024 | Uncategorized
I’ll begin with an admission: I’ve written a lot of what could be called “travel poems.” I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but it does introduce questions. Henri Cartier-Bresson said that while great photographs could be taken anywhere, “the heart beats faster in...
by gsfrnkln | Nov 8, 2024 | Uncategorized
As I write this, two days have passed since Donald Trump was elected to a second term as President of the United States. This was shocking for many of us, including me. I could not understand how citizens of a democracy that–whatever its flaws–had...
