Tag Archives: ekphrasis

She Comes Drenched in Associations: Sara Blaisdell’s “Ophelia”

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Anthology Poet Highlight 36/82: Sara Blaisdell, “Ophelia“ (This links to an earlier version of the poem.) [audio:http://fireinthepasture.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Blaisdell_Ophelia.mp3](My reading of “Ophelia” [the anthologized version]) Sara’s “Ophelia” makes me a bit melancholy. As does the painting upon which I’m pretty sure it’s based (see above). As does Shakespeare’s lady “of ladies most deject and wretched, / That suck’d the honey of [Hamlet’s]… Read more »

Between Michael Hicks and Me: “Family Tree” Remix

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In which I respond to and remix the first section of Michael Hicks’ poem, “Family Tree.” Scales hoarse as secrets whispered between lovers at dusk, a serpent—and not  a serpent—licks at Adam’s  dreams, tasting his flesh  to test what knowledge  had infused the first man in  Father’s quickening sigh.  Adam hears voices  from deep in the serpent’s  caress, hears a… Read more »

On Serrano’s Piss Christ and the Work of Mormon Poetics

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Anthology Poet Highlight 31/82: Tyler Chadwick, “Submerged: Two Variations on Serrano’s Piss Christ“ (on page 72) The central method of gaining knowledge we have is our language. I do not think it is the function of the poets to give us little homilies in it, but to try to work the language to the limits of its resources, because when… Read more »