Poetry magazine, May 2007

Along with the call for submissions from those who have not been published in the magazine before, the May 2007 issue of Poetry has some fascinating things in it. It starts off with a bang with two poems by Bob Hicok, including the splendid "O my pa-pa." Susan Stewart contributes the sonnet "A Boy's Voice," and Maurice Manning's "A Blasphemy" is also quite strong, and is followed by two poems about sleepless nights with a small child by my friend Geoffrey Brock.

Then there's Michael Hofmann's review of the new Collected Poems of Zbigniew Herbert. I said there are fascinating things in the magazine, and this review is fascinating—not because of what it says about Herbert (we all know he's a great poet, don't we?) or what it says about the history of Herbert translation into English (although it's kind of interesting to find out that the previous translators have not done this book because of conflicts with Herbert's widow) or even what it says about the new translations (according to Hofmann, "Alissa Valles's Herbert is slack, chattersome, hysterical, full of exaggeration, complacency, and reaching for effect").

No, it's fascinating to watch Hofmann write a review that most people will remember because of what it reveals about the reviewer himself. As I'm not reviewing his review, I don't have to provide a list of adjectives like those Hofmann uses to dismantle Valles. I'll let you decide.

DPP6

THE DAILY POEM PROJECT, WEEK SIX

Here are the poems to vote for in week six of my Daily Poem Project (the poems on Poetry Daily from Monday, April 30, to Sunday, May 6):

36. Susan Stewart, "The Lost Colony"
37. Kevin McFadden, "The Ides of Amer-I-Can"
38. Robin Ekiss, "Vanitas Mundi"
39. John Skoyles, "The Wish Mind"
40. Dan Gerber, "Bodhisattva"
41. Gabriel Fried, "Traveling Fair"
42. James Longenbach, "A Different Route"

The Rules:

You can send your vote to me by email or as a comment on the blog. If you want to vote by commenting but do not want your vote to appear on the blog, you just have to say so in your comment (I moderate all comments). In any case, I will not post the comments until after the final vote is in (secret ballot). Please vote by the number of the poem in the list above! Please make a final decision and vote for only one poem! Please VOTE BY THURSDAY, MAY 10!

Abstaining: If you read the poems but decide that there is no poem that you want to vote for, I'd like to know that you have decided to abstain.

Results of previous weeks:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five