poetry

POETRY NOTEBOOK: REFLECTIONS ON THE INTENSITY OF LANGUAGE
by Clive James

It’s not often you hear of a poem going viral, but that’s essentially what happened with “Japanese Maple,” the poem Clive James, who suffers from a variety of terminal ailments, wrote about his impending death last year in the New Yorker. When his powers of prophecy failed (the poem suggested he would die after the titular maple’s leaves fell in autumn) James admitted to an Australian interviewer that he found the fact of his continued existence “embarrassing.” Read more…

CITY KIDS
by X.J. Kennedy

As the title suggests, the poems in this collection, culled from X.J. Kennedy’s previously published work, are meant to reflect the experiences of children growing up in urban environments. Kennedy, who is American, sets his work on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border, touching down in San Diego, New York City, and San Francisco, as well as Toronto, Windsor, and Quebec City. Read more…