Ann E. Michael Minerva, the Roman goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom… Periodically, because I have so many friends and colleagues who are writers, the subject of whether writing is therapeutic appears in conversation or on social media. A recent New …
Tag Archives: essay
Is Poetry Therapeutic? Define Your Terms!
Posted in April 6, 2015
Tags: Ann E. Michael, essay, Spring 2015
Going Inside the Cave: Where the Personal and Political Intersect in Contemporary Narrative American Poetry
Posted in April 6, 2015
Tags: Brian Fanelli, essay, Spring 2015
Brian Fanelli In his essay “A Defence of Poetry,” Percy Shelley declares that poets should be “the unacknowledged legislators of the world. In Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke takes a more confessional stance, stating that to write …
Children of a Difficult Labor
Posted in April 6, 2015
Tags: Bruce Bond, essay, Spring 2015
Bruce Bond There is no birth of consciousness without pain. —Carl Jung You must revise your life. —Rainer Maria Rilke When I first read Jung, I was 23, fresh out of my …
Poetry Writing Hacks: 7 Playful Ways To Create Poetry
Posted in April 6, 2015
Tags: essay, Laura Weldon, Spring 2015
Laura Weldon Kids are eager to liberate poetry from the stuffy good-for-you closet where it’s so often kept. That is, as long as they can do so playfully. Each time I lead poetry-writing workshops I learn from students as young …
Neurology and Poetry
Posted in October 11, 2014
Tags: Ann E. Michael, essay, Fall 2014
Ann E. Michael, Contributing Editor For me, reading about consciousness, neurology, the evolution of brain development, and scientific studies on neuropsychology is oddly soothing. The findings in these articles and books often mesh well with books I read about Buddhism, …
The Poetry of Non-Poetry: On Alan Bigelow’s “This Is Not A Poem”
Posted in October 11, 2014
Tags: essay, Fall 2014, Michael Leong
Michael Leong “Poetry can be any damn thing it wants,” observes the distinguished critic and translator Mary Ann Caws in a 2009 article for Poetry Magazine. One can take this unapologetically blithe statement—which, after the groundbreaking innovations of modernism, seems …
The Ghazal
Posted in October 11, 2014
Tags: essay, Fall 2014, Khadeeja Mushtaq
Khadeeja Mushtaq The Ghazal is increasingly becoming popular in the Western world, especially America where the assimilation of different cultures has resulted in the appreciation and adaptation of other literary forms. Ghazals appeared in American poetry en route Urdu poetry …
Confessions of a Failed Poet
Posted in October 11, 2014
Tags: essay, Fall 2014, Laura Moe
Laura Moe On a recent coffee date with a former student, he told me he only likes rhyming poetry, and he recited two poems by Frost and Shelley from memory. It is easier to memorize rhyme, and most children’s books …
Going the Distance, an essay by John McCarthy
Posted in July 30, 2013
Tags: essay, goals, inspiration, John McCarthy, motivation, running, writing life
Mid-foot strike. Circle breathing. An explosion of words ready to rattle inside the steady skull. There is a synchronous, quiet glide. Most of the time, I am not thinking about anything on a run. Only when I stop, and a …
Why I Like Writing in Airports… by Elizabeth Kate Switaj
Posted in March 8, 2013
Tags: Elizabeth Kate Switaj, essay, Inspiration Series, March 2013
This is the second installment in our series about inspiration. Do you have something that always works? Tell us about it in the Comments. Inspiration Series: #2 by PQ Contributing Editor Elizabeth Kate Switaj We give up a lot to …