Paul Baerman

My pantun

I had occasion to facilitate a small poetry enclave this fall, and for our final assignment we agreed to try our hand at a pantun or pantoum, originally a Malaysian form that …

Quote du jour

“The best poems … give the answers to questions only they have raised.”

–Paul Muldoon, “Cuba (2)” in 1,000 Things worth knowing (2014)

MacNeice–> Kooser

I’m pretty sure that Paul Muldoon, of whom we spoke recently, felt the influence of his fellow Irish emigré Louis MacNeice, at least as a subterranean tremor. I find this reassuring, since …

Discovery: Paul Muldoon

I very much admire Seamus Heaney, whose translations of Beowulf and the Aeneid excel the others that I’ve read. He led me to another Irish poet, Paul Muldoon, who’s perhaps …

The “old-fashioned” Mary Oliver

I realize that many of you regard my instincts as a writer hopelessly out of date. I admire poets who were working 50, 75, 100 years ago —and I haven’t even mentioned …

After After Rain

Okay, my series of five items was piling Pelion on Ossa, as the guy said before Zeus took him out. I had a few other second thoughts too, so would you believe:

Night …

Twelve Words After Rain

In lieu of a composed poem, one of my mentors invited me to write down a dozen words off the top of my head. I scribbled

fawn

highway

gardenia

earthworm

relent

independence

soil

refrain

repay

reverse

reform

I buried the list for a few …

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