Poem: “Overture”
Collection: Tremolo by Kelly Hansen Maher
Line: (some i named, but (i did not name them all
Response: After I had my daughter, I felt this tension. It was the most profound moment. But some writers see it as twee, cute, domestic to write about birth. Loss. The body making. When that is the last way I see it. Maher does the devastation justice. Of loss. And how the body holds life and grief inside. Like a parentheses. But always unevenly.
Poem: “October Anecdote” by John Gallaher
Chapbook: The Future of Love
Favorite line/ phrase: “Come in now. The metal/ is cold to the touch.”
Response: This poem lives at a playground. Late afternoon. Late fall. And it feels simple. But menacing. There are so many questions only continued re readings will answer. Which is exactly my plan.
poems???? How about AWP16!!!
Expect a lot of books in the days to come! But today? Today Ander Monson signed a book for me. Seriously.
Poem: “Winter Inlet Arrangement” by Hastings Hensel
Journal: 32 Poems
Favorite line/ phrase: “the tin sheen of the pluff mud bank”
Response: This is a poem I wish I had written. It sees both the detail in the landscape but also the meaning behind it, the way we freight what we see with who we are. And while I can see everything he describes, and it makes perfect sense to me, I have never thought of it in those terms. Sometimes, that is exactly what I want poetry to be: new, but understood, terms for the world around me.
Maggie Blake Bailey Poetry 