by gsfrnkln | Apr 4, 2026 | Uncategorized
There are times when a revelation comes along and knocks you off your donkey. With apologies to St. Paul, my particular moment was when I realized how much we all want our poems to be liked. Social media has a lot to do with this. How many “likes” did your poem...
by gsfrnkln | Feb 11, 2026 | Uncategorized
I spend much of my week doing purposeful writing, usually legal writing with the goal of convincing someone of something that benefits a client. The poetry I write, however, does not have a purpose and should not have a purpose. I understand that our democracy is...
by gsfrnkln | Oct 13, 2025 | Uncategorized
A random thought just passed by and smacked me: when I read a poem, a picture starts to form in my mind of the poet. I don’t mean a picture of the poet’s physical appearance, although that may happen eventually. I mean an impression of a person, an individual,...
by gsfrnkln | Sep 23, 2025 | Uncategorized
There is a story about a friendly debate between Kenneth Burke and Harold Bloom where Burke explained that the question he always asked about any literary work was “What was the writer trying to do for himself or herself as a person?” Bloom replied that the question...
by gsfrnkln | Aug 28, 2025 | Uncategorized
These are not easy days for anybody, but if you’re a poet, fiction writer, or essayist and you have the resources and leisure to write, you’re not doing too badly. Compared, that is, to the people who don’t have a place to live, don’t have enough to eat, or who are...
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...
