This is Angela Ball's Typepad Profile.
Join Typepad and start following Angela Ball's activity
Angela Ball
Recent Activity
Wow! I can't imagine a better poem to end the year with. A poem of beginnings, it floats in the ether that supports the best poems, a sacred and permanent form of the substance found inside the Magic 8 Ball, that buoys the answer, "Ask Again Later" out of blackness.
"The Complete History of the Boy" [by David Lehman]
"The Complete History of the Boy" is the poetry feature of the month on the The Common out of Amherst, Mass., ably edited by the poet John Hennessy Here is part one of the poem: 1. The baby giggled in his crib. His father walked in. “Why are you laughing?” “Because,” the baby said,...
I love this poem.
Near Wuhan [by David Shapiro]
I wandered lonely as a map I had to return to the poisonous, little town of Wuhan I played with my father’s ancient microscope And I played with my mother’s telescope And I met my sister’s metronome And I walked to the line, the laser line And I met and I sang On my way through the buddhafield...
Thank you so much, David! And thank you so much for the terrific challenge. The highlight of my week.
Poetry Challenge: A Prompt [by David Lehman]
Prompt: Write a poem sparked by the deliberately unidentified portrait above. Imagine that it is the portrait of either (a) a celebrated modern poet or (b) a wounded World War I veteran war or (c) a dashing art critic, champion of Cubism or (d) an avatar of Frank O'Hara in Paris. Quiz: Name th...
Words from a Painting by Giorgio Di Chirico
I am mannequin
and still life
plucked from wire
in Verdun. If you prefer,
think of my eye cups
as motorcycle glasses;
if you prefer, think
of my thoughts
as fish, noble,
never to be caught.
I’ll mount my Ducati,
speed through storms
to Santiago
de Compostella, become
a holy shell
in a field of stars.
Poetry Challenge: A Prompt [by David Lehman]
Prompt: Write a poem sparked by the deliberately unidentified portrait above. Imagine that it is the portrait of either (a) a celebrated modern poet or (b) a wounded World War I veteran war or (c) a dashing art critic, champion of Cubism or (d) an avatar of Frank O'Hara in Paris. Quiz: Name th...
Beautifully said, David. You were an ever-generous quizmaster, and it was always a lovely bonus when you included a reply--partial or complete--to your own prompt, in the spirit of sharing your craft as you asked us to share ours.
"Next Line, Please": Five Glorious Years [by David Lehman]
In September 2019, my tenure as editor and quizmaster of “Next Line, Please,” the weekly challenges that The American Scholar introduced on its website in May 2014, came to an end. Two years ago, Cornell University Press published a selection of the first two and a half years of the p...
David, this is wonderful. I will be gifting it to my undergrads. Kudos!
"Opening Shot": Toward "Chapter One" [by David Lehman]
Marsh Hawk Press, under the direction of Sandy McIntosh, has launched a monthly on-line feature in which poets are asked to write up the "chapter one" of their vocations. Among those who have written for the project are Denise Duhamel, Philip Lopate, and Jane Hirshfield. My own contribution is ...
Yes, David! You definitely should.
"Bread and Wine" by Friedrich Hölderlin [trans. David Lehman]
"I don't believe you have any notion of the pleasure that the arrival of the fourth volume of Hölderlin's collected works provided me. I had been waiting for it so long and so eagerly (you see, I had ordered the collected works in August(!) at a bookstore). Because of my excitement, I was almos...
What a beautiful translation, David!
"Bread and Wine" by Friedrich Hölderlin [trans. David Lehman]
"I don't believe you have any notion of the pleasure that the arrival of the fourth volume of Hölderlin's collected works provided me. I had been waiting for it so long and so eagerly (you see, I had ordered the collected works in August(!) at a bookstore). Because of my excitement, I was almos...
Wow! Enjoyed this poem so much. Especially the cascading ending.
"The Artful Dodger" (a poem for Sandy's birthday) [by David Lehman]
As a boy (who destroyed his eyesight reading in the dark by flashlight, I went to the library for Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens because I had heard of the artful dodger and figured he must have played for Brooklyn; and even now, years later, as an English major (who has read five novels by Di...
So well said, David Lehman.
"Lunching with Elaine Equi" [by David Lehman]
Sometimes, when lunching alone, I bring Elaine Equi along for company, rereading Ripple Effect sipping a cup of strong black coffee and slipping into the room where Fairfield Porter paints the light, and solitude rhymes with altitude, attitude, multitude, lassitude, and beatitude. That’s how I ...
To enjoy David Lehman's "Ninth Inning" even more, watch Kurt Gibson's game winning home run, 1988, on YouTube.
Batter Up! Poems Inspired by Baseball, Thanks to Jim Cummins [by Stacey Lehman]
Johnny Podres, 1955 World Series Game 3 We have our friend Jim Cummins to thank for this podcast of baseball-inspired poems that comes to us from University of Cincinnati Elliston Project. Jim is the innovator who curated the Elliston Poetry Collection for over three decades, beginning in th...
David and Amy--
Already looking forward to the delayed second half of the last season--as much for your commentary, that blooms so many details we might have overlooked--as for the show itself.
Point Counterpoint: David Lehman and Amy Gerstler on Mad Men Season 7 Episode 7
On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 4:05 PM David Lehman wrote: The Best Things in Life Are Free Casting Robert Morse as Bert Cooper, the firm’s senior partner, was an inspired move from the start. In the early 1960s Morse played J. Pierrepont Finch on Broadway in the Pulitzer-winning produc...
A Blue Towel -- on James Schuyler [by Angela Ball]
Posted Mar 7, 2014 at The Best American Poetry
Comment
4
Ashes Ashes All Fall Down [by Angela Ball]
Posted Mar 6, 2014 at The Best American Poetry
Comment
4
Giving Up Solemnity For Lent -- on Kenneth Koch [by Angela Ball]
Posted Mar 5, 2014 at The Best American Poetry
Comment
2
Late News from Poland (on O'Hara, Koch, and the NY School) [by Angela Ball]
Posted Mar 4, 2014 at The Best American Poetry
Comment
2
A New York State of Mind [by Angela Ball]
I write from Mississippi on a rainy Monday, and from the middle of a class on The New York School of Poets and the New York School diaspora. The class has graduate fiction writers and poets who are part of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers, and a graduate student in literature, as well. All are fully engaged in exploring the NYS aesthetic and how well it suits our current condition—how in John Ashbery’s poetry city can turn itself inside out into farmstead; how New York is a peoplescape in Frank O’Hara, and the past socializes with the present; how Kenneth Koch revolutionizes the apostrophe and makes comedy and tragedy compadres; and how James Schuyler seamlessly joins the human and the natural in lines like these from “Closed Gentian Distances”: “A nothing day full of / wild beauty and the / timer pings.” Mississippi may seem very far from New York—but the New York School imagination specializes in motion. It goes everywhere on its nerve, and its energies are enlivening the work of poets all over the place. (Sometime during this week I hope to include a report on the NYS in Poland.) Our course will end with a special symposium, to which you are all invited. For details, go to www.usm.edu/english and click on the Moorman Symposium link. Our celebration will include readings by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, along with award-winning poets Denise Duhamel, Barbara Hamby, David Kirby, and BAP’s own David Lehman, who will moderate a panel discussion on the New York School Diaspora. True to form, my students are teaching one another—and me—new things about the NYS. Over the next few days you’ll be hearing their thoughts about the big four New York School poets and beauties, energies, and perplexities their work provides. - Angela Ball Continue reading
Posted Mar 3, 2014 at The Best American Poetry
Comment
0
Angela Ball is now following The Typepad Team
Feb 27, 2014
Subscribe to Angela Ball’s Recent Activity