Comments on: Erica Dawson’s Big-Eyed Afraid

By: that ace kid

that ace kid — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:51:07 +0000

i like peanutbutter

By: The False Divide « Every Poet Needs A Patio

The False Divide « Every Poet Needs A Patio — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:37:20 +0000

[...] I was just looking at Quincy Lehr’s blog, The Belletrist, and ran across a discussion of how the tiresome free-verse-versus-formalist binary manifests itself in book reviews. Yes, let the barbaric yawpers of personal and artistic freedom continue to box, package, and [...]

By: Robert Donohue

Robert Donohue — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:30:24 +0000

While A.E Stallings’s techniques can be traced back to the genres and styles of the 1590’s it’s wrong to hold this as a “gold” standard; different people have different perspectives. If formalist arguments have any real value, and I think they do, you will see them put to many services. I have not read Miss Dawson’s book, but I have read individual poems in journals and I am intrigued. A writer I have read, however, is Karen Volkman. While I think Miss Volkman’s work is vatic and silly, I do appreciate the effort she has made to put it into Petrarchan sonnets. Formalism should be like a wedding where everyone is invited.

By: Rose

Rose — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:44:00 +0000

Correction: a whopping TWO quatrains.

By: Rose

Rose — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:42:58 +0000

Wow, Tim, that’s pretty extreme, especially considering you’ve only read one quatrain of one poem. I can see it not being your cuppa, but why the hostility? Sometimes it takes a little time to appreciate someone’s work when they’re doing something very different from what you’re used to.

By: Tim Murphy

Tim Murphy — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:22:34 +0000

This is the first Erica Dawson poem I have read, and it utterly grosses me out. Quince, you know I am not just an old man despising the young, I bend over backwards for young poets. I just hate to see techniques like rhyme and meter, which go back to prehistory, put to the service of this writer. And I mean SERVICE.