LOVE The Critic and her Publics. The Jackson Howard episode was a favorite.
I always look up the background of an author I’m reading. I need to at least have some idea of how they arrived at the book I’m holding in my hands. If there are other books mentioned in a book I’m reading and I’m not familiar with it…I look those up too. Love that you do the same!
She is! In the beginning of the first season she kept saying uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh to the person she was interviewing and it would drive me crazy. I’m glad she quickly grew out of the habit as time went on. (Being on air is HARD.) it’s really fun to be able to witness growth when someone is trying a new skill.
Thank you detective Petya for doing all the work for us both!! I love and admire how different approaches to reading and how both of them were brought out in our discussion of Möbus! Going forward I am going to see if I can interrogate more why I read the acknowledgements when I do, and why in some cases I don't?!!
The phrase 'the impulse to trace literary DNA' is magical.
You should definitely read Elsa Gabbert's essay "On the pleasures of front matter" where she discusses her love and appreciation for book introductions, epigraphs, and translator notes:
translators notes are actually the ONLY ‘credit’ or ‘note’ I read in a book because I think they’re so valuable. It’s the notes or acknowledgments in a non translated book that I never read haha.
It was so fun! It would have been a way less fruitful reading experience if we didn’t go through it together <3
Taste evolves for a variety of reasons. Growing is experiencing and experiencing changes us. I'm not big on poetry (exploring the classics over the last few years is enough of a change so far), but when I encounter it (for example at the head of each chapter of Middlemarch) I read it carefully trying to fathom the reason for that fragment in that place.
I completely agree with you. Taste evolves for so many reasons --- and it's constantly changing. I realize that I am experiencing now something that a lot of readers went through in high school... but I never did. I am documenting my personal journey and trying not to judge myself for where life has taken me.
Love this, Petya. I'm about to start dipping into poetry as well, and one my big reasons for it is to bypass the analytical wiring in my brain and sink into images/ feelings/ sensations—basically have reading experiences that are more physical than cerebral. This can happen with prose, too (like it did with The Poetics of Space), but poetry, I think, is a surer and more direct way to access physicality through words.
Also these questions are really good and I love how they naturally arose for you: "Is this writer letting me in? Are there trailheads for me to follow? Is this a closed system or are there openings? The natural gossip in me has always been curious about authors' backgrounds but now I find myself wondering more and more: What books are they in conversation with? Whose voices are humming under the surface?"
I am surprised that Alex Dimitrov (Russian? Bulgarian?) described "The job of a poet is to chase a feeling." It is so little. I work on Mandelstam's poetry now, and his understanding of poetry seems much deeper: "Poetry is a power, if they kill for it; poetry renders the honor and respect, if they are afraid of it." Of course, it's the understanding of the Russian poet, but chasing a feeling sounds rather cheap for a prominent poet.
Larisa, I don't think that Alex Dimitrov believes that this is the *sole* job of a poet -- this is a line I pulled from one of his poems and it is entirely out of context. But I also do not believe that chasing a feeling - tracing its origin, development and ultimate direction - is too little either!
Making a note to read Mandelstam, I am not familiar with his work (but that doesn't say much as I am so new to the world of poetry). Thank you for the recommendation.
Petya, I resonate so much with everything you've written here. I love poetry because I feel as though I can sink into it; it lives in me differently than stories do. Like you, I am also interested in the atmosphere and texture of language and story. I like when the pacing slows down and we get to "look around" and feel our way through the narrative. Similarly, I've never been super into plot either. Speaking of plot, I recently wrote the following quotation from T. S. Eliot in my commonplace journal: "Plot is the bone you throw the dog while you go in and rob the house."
Thank you for all of this! Really loved this post.
Thank you so much! How do you read poetry? I have been picking up single-author collections and just reading them in a few sittings. But now I am realizing that I may be rushing through - how many signs do I need to slow the F down?!
I love that T.S. Eliot quote but also - sometimes I start to read one of my novels and wonder... when did we decide that plot was boring?! Of course, good writing is good writing... regardless of form or genre.
My poetry reading is fairly random (as in, I don’t read entire collections at a time). I often find that I have to slow down a lot to read poetry. I’ll reread a poem multiple times, too. Feels like savouring food, in a way.
I hear you about plot, too! It’s not boring to me, but it’s also not the thing that draws me into a story. Like you, I’m drawn to character (and language).
This is so gorgeous to read Petya. I love poetry for similar reasons to yours—how it works on me in a deep way that I can feel, but as you write, cannot always name or understand. The first poets who did this for me as a child were Shel Silverstein and Lewis Carroll. As an adult, I felt a familiar mystery and power in Carol Ann Duffy and, more recently, in Kaveh Akbar and Megan Denton.
I also love what you write about lineage. I love intertextuality—when a poem is doing what another poem did in a new way (like all the versions of *Ars Poetica* out there) and I really love when novels make reference to other novels (or tropes, themes, even character types).
Thank you so so much, Haley. When we were getting married in Bulgaria, Kyle and I asked our Greek Orthodox priest for a script so we could translate the service for our American guests and he said he absolutely refused to do that because the ceremony was a mysticism between us and God. Now. I am not a religious person but never forgot that and keep reminding myself that we need to create space and allow for mysticism in life... And I honestly feel that reading poetry puts us in that frame of mind where we are just open to receiving... whatever comes up. I know this sounds a little woo-woo...
I am adding Carol Ann Duffy and Megan Denton to my list. Kaveh Akbar, too, becausе even though I read Martyr, I still have not ready any of his poetry!
this is so so interesting to me because I am having a similar reaction to my reading but completely the opposite - the more I read, the more I need something innovative. if something isn't slightly weird or different in its language/themes/structure, I find myself getting bored. I've been rolling my eyes at the quiet stuff, like stoneyard devotional. I'm in my weird era, apparently 🙊
Please write us a post about that. We are all on our own reading journeys and it's so cool to see where on the trail we all get sidetracked, lost or turned around!!!
i just read my comment back and it sounded snarky - no snarky i hope you know. i do cry over animal videos so i know I'm not completely cold hearted 😂 🖤
FYI: I hadn't the time or inclination to read poetry for better part of many decades, and at the suggestion of a friend last Fall I enrolled in the free non-credit online University of Pennsylvania 10 week course "Modern & Contemporary American Poetry", which begins live around Sept 1 of each year. I'm going to return this year, they continue to discuss new poems, plus I missed a week last year... there's the ability to join any of the five or so live discussion groups held at various times each week. The acronym is "MoDPO" and you can learn more by internet search and enroll. No Mary Oliver, none of the poets you've mentioned, but plenty of others. It's led by Penn Prof Al Filreis.
I search out prose written by poets. Whether fiction or autobiography or other nonfiction, for similar reasons you express here. I struggle with heavy metaphorical writing, and feel i don’t always “get” poetry, but I love how poets see and write about the world around them…when done in prose. I’m currently reading Ocean Voung’s newest and just savoring his language and sense of place and quiet moments.
Same. Kaveh Akbar and Ocean Vuong are the two I have read recently. Also, Maggie Nelson - who can feel pretty inaccessible at times because she is so academic at times. I have been curious about Maggie Smith's divorce memoir.... but I got tired of divorce memoirs last year.... Still, I think that might be the one to read.
I hope people can give us more recommendations of novels by poets!!!
I enjoyed Maggie Smith's memoir...but that was the only divorce memoir I read that year! I was actually reading it when visiting my parent's-in-law in England and it was a bit awkward when asked what it was about... "What do you do with all that shared history." Was one gem that would keep me in my marriage. "Cento is kind of a poem assembled using the lines of other poets. Memory, too, is assemblage-a kind of cento, collaged from pieces, from scraps of life."
My experience of poetry is that it does tend to be in quite conscious relationship with its lineage. I also think (or was taught) most modern Western poetry is grounded in the poetics of either Eliot or Pound, based on its relationship to the “I” and/or metaphor.
Please share any references on where I can read more about that. Anahid and Merve talk about Pound's legacy/influence in the podcast episode I shared ... and I would love to read more about that!
Sophie Strand’s The Body Is a Doorway opened me up to the larger ecosystem of language and experience. That even as we sit quietly reading, say, there are infinite conversations happening through and within us. I recently wrote an essay on longing (in defense of longing), exploring the possibility that longing is the answer, that it is nothing to fill but to host, and I now am tuned to that longing in the words I read. So many hands and mouths and hearts reaching, always reaching, through the way life communicates!
Thank you for the book recommendation, Kimberly! I will take a look! LONGING is such a beautiful experience and I love reading longing in novels. The Safekeep was full of longing!!!
I just added it to my queue. I can’t wait to read it! And if you’d like to read my little exploration on longing, here it is. Such a delicious part of being alive.
As a poet, I really enjoyed reading this, Petya. People are often taught to feel intimidated by poetry, that it’s difficult to understand, that there’s some obscure, slippery core the reader has to figure out. But a poem is a song. It’s meant to be felt.
I am so grateful for your message, Andrea. I am so nervous to write about poetry in high impressionistic ways as if there is no way to study it -- I am trying to do THAT too but hoping to show that in a learning journey, there are benefits that come up faster before actual knowledge emerges.
There is a season for anything and everything. This is the season I am in... I hope this doesn't read like pressure to do so yourself but it's so fun to get a little reminder every once in a while to return to something you already love.
My poetry project has recently started. I read the same poem when I wake up and before I go to sleep. And right now, sometimes I repeat that with the same poem the next day. My brain seems to like the internal processing...like a metamorphosis.
LOVE The Critic and her Publics. The Jackson Howard episode was a favorite.
I always look up the background of an author I’m reading. I need to at least have some idea of how they arrived at the book I’m holding in my hands. If there are other books mentioned in a book I’m reading and I’m not familiar with it…I look those up too. Love that you do the same!
I loved the Jackson Howard episode as well! I think Merve is an excellent interviewer - given how erudite she is, she truly lets the guests shine.
She is! In the beginning of the first season she kept saying uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh to the person she was interviewing and it would drive me crazy. I’m glad she quickly grew out of the habit as time went on. (Being on air is HARD.) it’s really fun to be able to witness growth when someone is trying a new skill.
Thank you detective Petya for doing all the work for us both!! I love and admire how different approaches to reading and how both of them were brought out in our discussion of Möbus! Going forward I am going to see if I can interrogate more why I read the acknowledgements when I do, and why in some cases I don't?!!
The phrase 'the impulse to trace literary DNA' is magical.
You should definitely read Elsa Gabbert's essay "On the pleasures of front matter" where she discusses her love and appreciation for book introductions, epigraphs, and translator notes:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/09/11/on-the-pleasures-of-front-matter/
P.S. It was so fun to read that odd little book together!!!
translators notes are actually the ONLY ‘credit’ or ‘note’ I read in a book because I think they’re so valuable. It’s the notes or acknowledgments in a non translated book that I never read haha.
It was so fun! It would have been a way less fruitful reading experience if we didn’t go through it together <3
"I don't need a story, I need presence."
Taste evolves for a variety of reasons. Growing is experiencing and experiencing changes us. I'm not big on poetry (exploring the classics over the last few years is enough of a change so far), but when I encounter it (for example at the head of each chapter of Middlemarch) I read it carefully trying to fathom the reason for that fragment in that place.
I completely agree with you. Taste evolves for so many reasons --- and it's constantly changing. I realize that I am experiencing now something that a lot of readers went through in high school... but I never did. I am documenting my personal journey and trying not to judge myself for where life has taken me.
Love this, Petya. I'm about to start dipping into poetry as well, and one my big reasons for it is to bypass the analytical wiring in my brain and sink into images/ feelings/ sensations—basically have reading experiences that are more physical than cerebral. This can happen with prose, too (like it did with The Poetics of Space), but poetry, I think, is a surer and more direct way to access physicality through words.
Also these questions are really good and I love how they naturally arose for you: "Is this writer letting me in? Are there trailheads for me to follow? Is this a closed system or are there openings? The natural gossip in me has always been curious about authors' backgrounds but now I find myself wondering more and more: What books are they in conversation with? Whose voices are humming under the surface?"
YES. Get me out of my head, please!!!
I am surprised that Alex Dimitrov (Russian? Bulgarian?) described "The job of a poet is to chase a feeling." It is so little. I work on Mandelstam's poetry now, and his understanding of poetry seems much deeper: "Poetry is a power, if they kill for it; poetry renders the honor and respect, if they are afraid of it." Of course, it's the understanding of the Russian poet, but chasing a feeling sounds rather cheap for a prominent poet.
Larisa, I don't think that Alex Dimitrov believes that this is the *sole* job of a poet -- this is a line I pulled from one of his poems and it is entirely out of context. But I also do not believe that chasing a feeling - tracing its origin, development and ultimate direction - is too little either!
Making a note to read Mandelstam, I am not familiar with his work (but that doesn't say much as I am so new to the world of poetry). Thank you for the recommendation.
Petya, I resonate so much with everything you've written here. I love poetry because I feel as though I can sink into it; it lives in me differently than stories do. Like you, I am also interested in the atmosphere and texture of language and story. I like when the pacing slows down and we get to "look around" and feel our way through the narrative. Similarly, I've never been super into plot either. Speaking of plot, I recently wrote the following quotation from T. S. Eliot in my commonplace journal: "Plot is the bone you throw the dog while you go in and rob the house."
Thank you for all of this! Really loved this post.
Thank you so much! How do you read poetry? I have been picking up single-author collections and just reading them in a few sittings. But now I am realizing that I may be rushing through - how many signs do I need to slow the F down?!
I love that T.S. Eliot quote but also - sometimes I start to read one of my novels and wonder... when did we decide that plot was boring?! Of course, good writing is good writing... regardless of form or genre.
My poetry reading is fairly random (as in, I don’t read entire collections at a time). I often find that I have to slow down a lot to read poetry. I’ll reread a poem multiple times, too. Feels like savouring food, in a way.
I hear you about plot, too! It’s not boring to me, but it’s also not the thing that draws me into a story. Like you, I’m drawn to character (and language).
Love that quote!
This is so gorgeous to read Petya. I love poetry for similar reasons to yours—how it works on me in a deep way that I can feel, but as you write, cannot always name or understand. The first poets who did this for me as a child were Shel Silverstein and Lewis Carroll. As an adult, I felt a familiar mystery and power in Carol Ann Duffy and, more recently, in Kaveh Akbar and Megan Denton.
I also love what you write about lineage. I love intertextuality—when a poem is doing what another poem did in a new way (like all the versions of *Ars Poetica* out there) and I really love when novels make reference to other novels (or tropes, themes, even character types).
Thank you so so much, Haley. When we were getting married in Bulgaria, Kyle and I asked our Greek Orthodox priest for a script so we could translate the service for our American guests and he said he absolutely refused to do that because the ceremony was a mysticism between us and God. Now. I am not a religious person but never forgot that and keep reminding myself that we need to create space and allow for mysticism in life... And I honestly feel that reading poetry puts us in that frame of mind where we are just open to receiving... whatever comes up. I know this sounds a little woo-woo...
I am adding Carol Ann Duffy and Megan Denton to my list. Kaveh Akbar, too, becausе even though I read Martyr, I still have not ready any of his poetry!
I will send you Meg’s debut collection ❤️ she’s a dear friend and I have two copies!
Oh, that's amazing!!! Thank you!
this is so so interesting to me because I am having a similar reaction to my reading but completely the opposite - the more I read, the more I need something innovative. if something isn't slightly weird or different in its language/themes/structure, I find myself getting bored. I've been rolling my eyes at the quiet stuff, like stoneyard devotional. I'm in my weird era, apparently 🙊
Please write us a post about that. We are all on our own reading journeys and it's so cool to see where on the trail we all get sidetracked, lost or turned around!!!
i just read my comment back and it sounded snarky - no snarky i hope you know. i do cry over animal videos so i know I'm not completely cold hearted 😂 🖤
hahahah no. i didn't think you were snarky. 😂😂😂
FYI: I hadn't the time or inclination to read poetry for better part of many decades, and at the suggestion of a friend last Fall I enrolled in the free non-credit online University of Pennsylvania 10 week course "Modern & Contemporary American Poetry", which begins live around Sept 1 of each year. I'm going to return this year, they continue to discuss new poems, plus I missed a week last year... there's the ability to join any of the five or so live discussion groups held at various times each week. The acronym is "MoDPO" and you can learn more by internet search and enroll. No Mary Oliver, none of the poets you've mentioned, but plenty of others. It's led by Penn Prof Al Filreis.
That sounds wonderful!!! I will definitely look into the class, it sounds amazing!
I search out prose written by poets. Whether fiction or autobiography or other nonfiction, for similar reasons you express here. I struggle with heavy metaphorical writing, and feel i don’t always “get” poetry, but I love how poets see and write about the world around them…when done in prose. I’m currently reading Ocean Voung’s newest and just savoring his language and sense of place and quiet moments.
Same. Kaveh Akbar and Ocean Vuong are the two I have read recently. Also, Maggie Nelson - who can feel pretty inaccessible at times because she is so academic at times. I have been curious about Maggie Smith's divorce memoir.... but I got tired of divorce memoirs last year.... Still, I think that might be the one to read.
I hope people can give us more recommendations of novels by poets!!!
I enjoyed Maggie Smith's memoir...but that was the only divorce memoir I read that year! I was actually reading it when visiting my parent's-in-law in England and it was a bit awkward when asked what it was about... "What do you do with all that shared history." Was one gem that would keep me in my marriage. "Cento is kind of a poem assembled using the lines of other poets. Memory, too, is assemblage-a kind of cento, collaged from pieces, from scraps of life."
My experience of poetry is that it does tend to be in quite conscious relationship with its lineage. I also think (or was taught) most modern Western poetry is grounded in the poetics of either Eliot or Pound, based on its relationship to the “I” and/or metaphor.
Please share any references on where I can read more about that. Anahid and Merve talk about Pound's legacy/influence in the podcast episode I shared ... and I would love to read more about that!
Sophie Strand’s The Body Is a Doorway opened me up to the larger ecosystem of language and experience. That even as we sit quietly reading, say, there are infinite conversations happening through and within us. I recently wrote an essay on longing (in defense of longing), exploring the possibility that longing is the answer, that it is nothing to fill but to host, and I now am tuned to that longing in the words I read. So many hands and mouths and hearts reaching, always reaching, through the way life communicates!
Thank you for the book recommendation, Kimberly! I will take a look! LONGING is such a beautiful experience and I love reading longing in novels. The Safekeep was full of longing!!!
I just added it to my queue. I can’t wait to read it! And if you’d like to read my little exploration on longing, here it is. Such a delicious part of being alive.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unfixed/p/in-defense-of-longing?r=3lmmp&utm_medium=ios
As a poet, I really enjoyed reading this, Petya. People are often taught to feel intimidated by poetry, that it’s difficult to understand, that there’s some obscure, slippery core the reader has to figure out. But a poem is a song. It’s meant to be felt.
I am so grateful for your message, Andrea. I am so nervous to write about poetry in high impressionistic ways as if there is no way to study it -- I am trying to do THAT too but hoping to show that in a learning journey, there are benefits that come up faster before actual knowledge emerges.
Yes, I get it. It’s hard to find language for how we experience a poem. Thanks for writing about poetry, Petya!
Great 💕📚💕
Poetry is so magical and this was such a good reminder to read more of it! Also love the term "literary DNA"
There is a season for anything and everything. This is the season I am in... I hope this doesn't read like pressure to do so yourself but it's so fun to get a little reminder every once in a while to return to something you already love.
My poetry project has recently started. I read the same poem when I wake up and before I go to sleep. And right now, sometimes I repeat that with the same poem the next day. My brain seems to like the internal processing...like a metamorphosis.
I love this approach. I need to set some boundaries for myself and make myself slow down!!!