Samizdat Blog

Here’s a poem called “Shawl Dance.” It’s by Eric Elshtain, from his 2015 book This Thin Memory A-Ha. The sky of it causes harmony in ...

The good people at the Huffington Post have interviewed me about what’s going on in the poetry world. Here’s a snippet: I’ve always t...

Not long ago, as I was shuffling my way through the local used bookshop, I saw a pristine copy of the November 1968 issue of Evergreen ...

Happy to say that "His Swords and Armor: Remembering Michael Donaghy" is available in its entirety at Poetry Daily.  The piece...

Remember how the anti-Trump demonstrations were so vast they sent our president running to his phone to squeak out some angry tweets? I...

You want to know about rhyme, you ask Anthony Madrid.  Trust me on this.  Here's the beginning of his new essay, "A Gallery ...

These are dreadful times, for which we need a poetry of dread.  Ernest Hilbert's got us covered, in his new book Caligulan.   I wrot...

Left to right: Michael Donaghy, Richard Pettengill, Robert Archambeau, at Donaghy's last American reading, 2004 Talk to anyone abou...

When did Buffalo become Buffalo ? If you're at all interested in the little demimonde of American poetry, you know that the unlik...

Poetry wars? What poetry wars? Henry King has written a very insightful review of my book The Kafka Sutra  in which he gets at my sense ...

The age of "alternative facts" demands an alternative approach to the humanities.  Or so I argue in a short essay called ...

"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your na...