Ashok Karra

poetry

Emily Dickinson, "This is my letter to the World" (J 441, F 519)

Vendler allows this lyric to resonate with moral force, and I have no doubt some will commit this poem to memory because of her interpretation.

poetry

Donald Hall, "The Sea"

Some readers want to see how others live, how they process their experience, and how they wrestle with a changing sense of importance.

poetry

Kyla Houbolt, "bad idea"

That the Colosseum can be humane, peaceful, and fun for us may be a fitting tribute, though far more fitting if all colonial and imperial endeavors ceased.

poetry

Matsuo Bashō, "The temple bell stops..."

...I spend considerable time trying to explain my relevance, even when talking about my own life.

american politics

The New York Times presents "Day of Rage"

...we live in the shadow of Jan. 6th.

poetry

Yosa Buson, "The morning breeze..."

Clarity, then, is seeing things stand distinct. It’s the knowledge something, someone, can be whole and independent.

poetry

Kay Ryan, "Things That Have Stayed In Position"

Should a writer be toxic? Raising the stakes, erasing the past, undoing social bonds?

poetry

Tom Snarsky, "Opera"

Feeling unloved, one could say, isn’t having a free mind. Strictly speaking, it’s having a mind that “doesn’t feel like anything.”

poetry

Rainer Maria Rilke, "Closing-piece"

I am consistently impressed by Rilke’s ability to build with profundity, not just to profundity

poetry

Ezra Pound, "In a Station of the Metro"

I am scared to talk about the years in which I had all the awareness of a really useless rock.

art

Ben Nicholson, "March 17 1950 (still life);" Giorgio Morandi, "Still Life"

A simple interior, rather, is composed of shapes an imagination explodes with liveliness, just as dining with a little wine and fruit can be most pleasurable.

poetry

William Butler Yeats, "When Helen Lived"

“Beauty that we have won / From bitterest hours” threatens to give war a glamour it should not be given.

poetry

Kyla Houbolt, "Gold"

...good love poetry is good poetry, expanding sensitivity’s range.

philosophy

Immanuel Kant: "the possession of power inevitably corrupts reason's free judgment"

With the little power I've had, it's the mistakes I imagine I've made which recur in my thoughts.

poetry

Paul Celan, "You may"

The simultaneity of horror and happiness emerges in Celan's lyric through the semblance of gesture.

poetry

Emily Dickinson, "In the name of the Bee" (J 18, F 23)

What seems to be at stake for Dickinson is as much as a bee, a butterfly, and a breeze. Why can’t she just have her say and be left alone?

poetry

Wendy Videlock, "Bane"

Things mean things. Getting older is frustration that it’s hard to convey that meaning.

philosophy

Kant and Jefferson on Enlightenment

Today I want to talk about a little bit of the rhetoric Kant and Jefferson use to advance Enlightenment ideals. Some scholars assume that because ideals of universal education and technological progress won out years ago, we have an assessment of their legacy ready at hand.

poetry

Kay Ryan, "Backward Miracle"

I’m still not entirely comfortable with calling answered prayers for parking spaces or relief of everyday anxieties “miraculous.”

poetry

Matsuo Bashō, "Don't imitate me..."

The problem lies in giving an audience more of the same. Imagine being presented with melon and more melon as choices for dessert.

poetry

Kay Ryan, "Cloud"

Ryan, like Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bishop, is also a poet of “existential horror.” She extends hope, but her lyrics terrify if attended properly.

poetry

Farnaz Fatemi, "Everything Is Made Of Labor"

Even the best believe good writing equates to a “mic drop” moment: say a fact to end all debate and nothing else needs to be written.

poetry

Deborah A. Bennett, "beyond the fog..."; Ross Gay, "A Small Needful Fact"

Ross Gay’s artistry demands we understand media criticism to be on the same level as close-reading.

poetry

Robert Creeley, "A Prayer"

“Bless / something small / but infinite / and quiet,” he prays, and I believe in the humility of his verse.

poetry

Kyla Houbolt, "I see no reason for poetry"

How do we learn? Often by pretending to be who we want to be. Like all things, this is full of complications and contradictions.