Entries by Bethany

Improvisation on a Theme

Okay, okay, I said I’d read a poetry book every day in April and report here. But the only book I read today (and that, rather obsessively) was my own manuscript of poems, which I told my editor I would send to him. Today. It still isn’t where I want it to be, but I’m […]

Linda Pastan’s Insomnia

Just the title alone would be enough to make this book resonate with me. But it’s also by Linda Pastan, who wrote “An Early Afterlife,” and — so far as I’m concerned — could have retired after that and still stayed at the top of my list. Instead, we have Insomnia (Norton, 2015). As Pastan grows older […]

Maurice Harmon’s When Love Is Not Enough: New & Selected Poems

This morning I reread the poems in Love Is Not Enough by Irish academic and poet Maurice Harmon (given name pronounced “Morris”). The book was published in 2010 on the occasion of Harmon’s 80th birthday and includes selections from his earlier books, including The Last Regatta, and The Mischievous Boy. On my recent visit to Ireland I was privileged to meet Professor […]

Danusha Laméris: The Moons of August

It is National Poetry Month, and having gone through all of my books in March (and letting go of a great number of them), I thought I would read an entire poetry book each day in April, and then tell you about it. A few years ago, when AWP was in Seattle, I attended a […]