Synopsis:
Butchers, mushrooms, yeast, yes—but also storms, philosophy, and Illuminations: the April issue of Poetry lights up mundane objects and takes up “Theories of the Soul,” all while ruminating on public poetry and considering drunkenness (in Arthur Rimbaud’s “Morning of Drunkenness”). John Ashbery translates wunderkind Rimbaud’s Illuminations, “an untitled, unpaginated bunch of manuscript pages” that would later become “one of the masterpieces of world literature.” But before we reach Rimbaud, Averill Curdy imagines the inner ramblings of Jamestown settler George Sandys (“Heaven & hell enlisted their geographers, / A map has opened the soul’s five hinges”). Plus, Timothy Bowling makes his debut (“It is time to be grateful for the breath / of what you could crush without thought, / a moth, a child’s love, your own life”), and Atsuro Riley, Roddy Lumsden, and C.K. Williams (“within us intricate layerings of color and pain: alive the brush is with pain”) return, along with Todd Boss and Laura Kasischke (“God so pleased with their silence / He grants them teeth and tongues”), who have both just released new collections. Be sure to check out David Orr’s review of Timothy Donnelly and listen for John Ashbery on our editors’ podcast, which we’re pleased to announce was recently recognized with a National Magazine Award for Digital Media. Here’s to a happy—and salubrious—National Poetry Month!
©2011
My Opinion:
This is a fantastic magazine for poetry lovers of poets.
There were a couple of pages that stood out to me in the April 2011 issue; A poem: Rondeau and the page dedicated to Jason Guriel. This is my favorite style of poetry so I was drawn to it.
A great find for National Poetry Month!
5/5
Recommend? To poets and poetry lovers, yes!
~I received a copy from Poetry Foundation. I was not compensated for my opinion.~
What a cool cover. Makes me think of Wall-e.
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