Toward a more Combative and Passionate Reading of Poems I am going to use combative here in the sense of Jacob wrestling with the angel. All night, he stands locked in with the angel until the dawn approaches. The angel…
Tag: Joe Weil
Joe Weil: “The Thing About Things: Notes on William Carlos Williams”
There are many poets who enjoy disliking William Carlos Williams. He wrote poems that seem distinguished only by their adherence to the “tossed off.” They make no major claims. They seem jotted off. So why study the man at all?…
Joe Weil: “Looking at Ballad Form, and the Nature of Voice”
One of the things that may irritate a post-structuralist reader about Auden is that he delights in “knowing” things—even those things which are ugly and disastrous to know. For example, his greatest praise of old masters: “About suffering, the old…