What opens when “pattern,” rather than “form” is allowed to guide our reading of literature? It might be thought a … More

Lately, I’ve been thinking—as a teacher and reader of criticism—about how criticism depends on discerning and working out various puzzles. … More

In a work of literature, rightness of feeling coincides with a feeling of rightness; authors apprehend just what and how … More

One divide in post-1950, maybe post-1960, American poetry could be said to grow out of the claims of the eye. … More

If readers come across Jim Powell, it is most likely to be in his translation of Sappho—his only work in … More

William Carlos Williams, whose poetry I’ve long felt to be, in hazy terms, slack and arbitrary, claiming, by its effusion, … More

The word “Virtue” can smack of the pious or sentimental, smoked with the incense of sentimentality. I think, though, that … More

The strange and wondrous movement of Wordsworth’s blank verse can be felt with special force in a poem that is … More