The Problems and Joys of Sanskrit Prosody
Please note: this was originally published as a note on my Facebook page. — If you read my last note, you would know that I have embarked on an epic journey, and that it...
Joshua Gray Blog
Book-length poem
PLEASE NOTE: THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE FALL, 2011 — IN REORGANIZING MY SITE, I HAVE COPIED IT OVER INTO MY BLOG. I started writing my epic poem this week. It’s a...
Last Days and Poet Couples
I’ve been thinking a lot about poet couples lately. I guess there are only a handful of them that go back to the beginning of time, but I could be completely wrong. By poet...
Last Days and Poet Couples
I’ve been thinking a lot about poet couples lately. I guess there are only a handful of them that go back to the beginning of time, but I could be completely wrong. By poet...
Death by the Letter R
To understand poems, it is usually necessary to understand the poet’s history. But when it comes to historical poems, it can be equally important, if not more important, to understand the poem’s history. Sometimes,...
Indo-Anglican Lamentation
W.B. Yeats once wrote in an introduction to a Rabindranath Tagore book written in English, “These prose translations from Rabindranath Tagore have stirred my blood as nothing has for years.” Tagore is Bengali, one...
Revolution’s Habit
I was in one of those small intellectual bookstores about two months ago — you know, those small business ones where they shelve their books with natural history and economic reform and a customer can’t find...
Youthful Yevtushenko
Recently I perused the poetry shelf of a bookstore, disappointed in the selection it offered.It was a large bookstore (Oxford Books), so it surprised me, but it was in India, so it didn’t, in...
Poem Flow
A couple months ago I was checking my e-mail messages on my phone when I saw one from The Academy of American Poets (poets.org), about a new iPhone app called Poem Flow. The idea seemed...
Concupiscent Ice Cream
I recently read The Emperor of Ice Cream by Wallace Stevens for the first time. I love the first stanza, but I do not get the second. As are other poets, Stevens was also...