James Merrill. “No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today’s / Dusk room aglow / For the last time / With candlelight. / Faces love lit, / Gifts underfoot. / Still to be so poised, so / Receptive. Still to recall, to praise.”

I blame the last @havehashad.com call for dropping me into an obsessive George Oppen rabbithole (but am secretly grateful). This discussion from Close Readings with @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social is an excellent starting point:

Last night, four acclaimed poets and scholars joined LOA LIVE for a fascinating personal discussion on revered critic and professor Helen Vendler. Watch @notquitehydepark.bsky.social, Dan Chiasson, @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social, and Christopher Spaide reflect on the influence of this towering figure.

On Tuesday, 12/2, join acclaimed poets and scholars Stephanie Burt, Dan Chiasson, Christopher Spaide, and @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social for a lively evening of reflections on the genius and influence of revered critic Helen Vendler, whose last essays were just published by LOA. RSVP for free!

She does not like it

I’m so sad to hear that the poet Ellen Bryant Voigt has died. I knew her only slightly. When her friend Louise Glück died, two years ago, she and I spoke on my podcast about fate, and loss, and poetry. I think about that conversation all the time. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Monday! Rutgers! Cake! Come along!

next Monday is the home turf launch for my book, Stitch, Unstitch: Modernist Poetry and the World of Work. With responses from the wonderful @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social and brilliant Rutgers grad students Lena Crown and Colton Hicks. Come along if you're local? RSVP: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Inger Christensen, from alphabet (trans. Susanna Nied)

Good job, MIT.

Strong truth here from @himself.bsky.social. Civil society has to get its act together and coordinate for the greater good, even if that's not its usual mode. Universities most especially.

A reminder that we’re hiring a poet at Villanova this year—tenure-track job, wonderful department, close proximity to Philly. Poets, please think about applying! jobs.villanova.edu/postings/33001

Hey poets and teachers out there! Villanova is hiring for a tenure-track assistant prof position. Great school and a wonderful English Department. Check it out below. jobs.villanova.edu/postings/33001

It's the end of The Best American Poetry. I wrote about the forty-year anthology project, poetry’s place in Big Five publishing, and editor David Lehman's culture wars vision of American verse. defector.com/good-riddanc...

We’re hiring a poet at Villanova this year! Tenure-track job, wonderful colleagues, eager students—and Philadelphia, too! Happy to try to answer any questions about the job. Poets! Apply! jobs.villanova.edu/postings/33001

I'm over the moon that my book, Relatability: Sharing and Oversharing with the New York School Poets, will be published by the University of Chicago Press in the not too distant future.

BREAKING: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a team of independent experts commissioned by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council concludes.

A man in Washington, DC, plays the Imperial March from Star Wars while following patrolling soldiers. One of the soldiers threatens to call the police.

It’s been 10 years since my sister was diagnosed, 4 years since she died. During those 6 years of illness, all we could hope for was that each treatment would buy us enough time to benefit from the treatments that hadn’t yet been discovered. I can’t fathom the cruelty & stupidity of this government.

In the coming decades, you or someone you love will be diagnosed with cancer, and you will wonder if Trump and DOGE are why treatments haven't improved

Read this book!

I too was blown away by how timely Descent of Alette is right now. The tyrant is capitalism and the billionaire class! This series has been so rewarding and comforting, especially this episode, which I'm saving. 🙏🏻

In case you’re in the mood…

Fantastic listen. 30 minutes into the episode the recording plays of TSEliot himself reading the Lovesong as an old man and then @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social and his wonderful guest have so much fun doing the close reading. Super informed but still fresh and fun

We're so delighted to have @kristingrogan.bsky.social 's brilliance for Re/Verse!!! (co-editors @glavey.bsky.social, @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social, and I have a couple more amazing books in the pipeline too)

super delighted to have signed a contract with Amherst College Press for a little book on Sylvia Plath’s Ariel, a book I cannot stop reading and thinking about and troubling over

Barely an hour ago, Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif warned us all: “If this madness doesn’t end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.” Israel just killed him.

"Even gifted scholars lose their way / through faulty etymology." Incredible poem and conversation.

“What is more precise than precision? Illusion.” Today, a long-overdue episode on Marianne Moore, with the great Siobhan Phillips. We talked about Moore’s wonderful poem “Armor’s Undermining Modesty.” open.spotify.com/episode/2FPe...

Do I dare to eat a peach? I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear my trousers rolled

Super sharp, super fun - the amazing Megan Quigley is well worth a listen wherever you can catch her! Here she is with Dr Kamran Javadizadeh on our pal Prufrock - do check out the Close Readings podcast

Great podcast. Great guest. And, let’s face it, great poem.

Let us go and make our visit... to this delightful podcast!

“Do I dare / Disturb the universe?” I talked with my friend Megan Quigley, modernism scholar extraordinaire, about T. S. Eliot and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Total dream of a conversation. open.spotify.com/episode/2oIz...

a conversation that loops about psychoanalysis and repetition and poetry and seriality and opens upon the unbound subject of the poem: What are you thinking now? I am thinking that a poem could go on forever.

Finally got to listen to this one this morning. So grateful for all that went into to the creation of the three episodes of Close Readings which focus on the life and work of Alice Notley. Filled in a lot of gaps for me about her work and made me curious for more. 💜

Probably my favorite poetry podcast going and Spicer was an important early love for me (though not someone I’ve read in a while!) so this is a big day for me personally

How is poetry like psychoanalysis? I had a fascinating conversation with Daniel Katz (@danielkatz.bsky.social) about Jack Spicer and his poem “Psychoanalysis: An Elegy.” open.spotify.com/episode/78hE...

New episode coming tomorrow morning! open.spotify.com/show/6ekeFa2...

“Then they started to talk about cuffing me, and that if the kids were here legally, what do they have to lose by answering. I told them that they still have their fifth and fourth amendment rights, and that they don’t have to speak to you or help with any investigation.”

Yesterday was June Jordan's celestial birthday. A few years ago, Kamran (@kjavadizadeh.bsky.social ) was kind enough to engage me in conversation about one of her poems. zencastr.com/z/GHwD-VUK

subscribed

Listening to this today on my walk in the woods. This is the third in a series of episodes on the work of the late Alice Notley. Such a wonderful introduction to a new to me poet. Thankful for the work here! 💜

Listened to this episode slowly over the last two days. What a great conversation! And especially timely for me as someone who just recently encountered “Alette” for the first time.

And it did all of this to protect (and later, after failing in that, punish the loss of) Western resource dominance. So much wreckage and devastation to support oil flows and revenues, and eventually, to demarcate where and for whom sovereignty exists.

perhaps we'll never crack the case

1953: US orchestrates a coup in Iran, deposes democratically elected prime minister 1953-1979: US supports dictator reinstalled in coup 1980-88: US supports Iraq in war w/Iran 1979-present: US sanctions on Iran 2018: US abandons nuclear treaty with Iran 2025: US bombs Iran