The output from my poem-a-day project.
In 1995 I returned to school to get my Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Warren Wilson College. By the end of the program I had written a book-length manuscript of poetry, called "The Leaf of My Puzzled Desire." One of the ways to get a first book of poetry published is to win a contest. In 1999 I submitted this manuscript to several contests, and it was a finalist for the Snake Nation Press and the National Poetry Series book prizes, and an Honorable Mention for the Sawtooth Poetry Prize.
As part of my studies, I came up with a "theory of poetry" based loosely on Christopher Alexander’s "Nature of Order." This is a set of slides I use to present the theory and how to use it to uncover how a poem works.
At Warren Wilson we write short essays called "annotations" as part of the learning process. This is the set of annotations I did leading up to "The Nature of Poetic Order." Some of the annotations are not directly on the path to that theory, but they may be interesting anyway.
This is an analysis of revisions Bill Knott made to the poem Lourdes using the centers-based analysis described in The Nature of Poetic Order and Annotations Toward a Theory of Poetry just above.
This is a review of "The Daily Mirror," by David Lehman. I wrote it for a literary ezine called Crania, but right after I submitted it, they folded.
This is a class I taught at the 2001 Warren Wilson Alumni Conference. It is about writing a poem a day and the roles of selection and perfection in creating art.
Annotations on poetry done at Warren Wilson College with Heather McHugh.
Annotations on poetry done at Warren Wilson College with Stephen Dobyns.
Annotations on poetry done at Warren Wilson College with Michael Collier.
An essay on James Wright done at Warren Wilson College with Michael Collier.
Annotations done at Warren Wilson College with Tom Lux.
Annotations done at Warren Wilson College with Tom Lux.
This is a friendly, unofficial reprint of a very hard to find poetry collection.