Ben Friedlander (he/him/his)
@mongibeddu.bsky.social
Poet, editor, scholar in Maine. Now available: Nice: The Collected Poems of David Melnick (https://nightboat.org/book/nice/). Free 🇵🇸; end the genocide now!
Zohran Mamdani has entered the chat.
November 5, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Zohran Mamdani has entered the chat.
Another example, this one closer to Hollander’s, is Gwendolyn Brooks’s “Mrs. Small” (here’s the first page). It raises the question of what exactly counts as free verse, slipping in and out of something that looks like metrical regularity (and GB herself was moving toward free verse then).
October 31, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Another example, this one closer to Hollander’s, is Gwendolyn Brooks’s “Mrs. Small” (here’s the first page). It raises the question of what exactly counts as free verse, slipping in and out of something that looks like metrical regularity (and GB herself was moving toward free verse then).
Here’s one that comes to mind—James Merrill’s “Prose of Departure, a Japan travel diary that occasionally breaks off into rhymed 5-7-5 stanzas, sometimes mid-sentence. The effect is hardly Ogden Nash-like.
October 31, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Here’s one that comes to mind—James Merrill’s “Prose of Departure, a Japan travel diary that occasionally breaks off into rhymed 5-7-5 stanzas, sometimes mid-sentence. The effect is hardly Ogden Nash-like.
“‘The banana plant’…wears the autumn wind and is broken by the autumn wind”—Dōgen
October 13, 2025 at 3:31 PM
“‘The banana plant’…wears the autumn wind and is broken by the autumn wind”—Dōgen
An improvement on this one!
April 27, 2025 at 9:33 AM
An improvement on this one!
Here’s a poem by Enslin from The Country of Our Consciousness (1971). You can tell from this he lived in Maine.
March 20, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Here’s a poem by Enslin from The Country of Our Consciousness (1971). You can tell from this he lived in Maine.
Mark Nowak has put together a celebratory reading for the one hundredth birthday of Theodore Enslin (1925-2011). DM for a zoom link.
March 20, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Mark Nowak has put together a celebratory reading for the one hundredth birthday of Theodore Enslin (1925-2011). DM for a zoom link.
The rocky beach was streaked with ice and snow and the wind made it hard to stay, but the coast was beautiful today.
February 23, 2025 at 12:36 AM
The rocky beach was streaked with ice and snow and the wind made it hard to stay, but the coast was beautiful today.
Jimmy Durante was part of a staged reading of Auden’s Age of Anxiety?
January 19, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Jimmy Durante was part of a staged reading of Auden’s Age of Anxiety?
For a course on American lit of the Cold War I’ve made a little anthology of poems. Not very adequate, but I do like the bookends; they feel right for 2025: Mina Loy’s “Photo After Pogrom” (1945) and Etel Adnan’s The Arab Apocalypse (1989).
January 10, 2025 at 3:25 PM
For a course on American lit of the Cold War I’ve made a little anthology of poems. Not very adequate, but I do like the bookends; they feel right for 2025: Mina Loy’s “Photo After Pogrom” (1945) and Etel Adnan’s The Arab Apocalypse (1989).
A polite way of saying irrelevant?
January 6, 2025 at 12:06 PM
A polite way of saying irrelevant?
Horror brings the sentimental novel into focus: Charles Brockden Brown’s distillation.
December 6, 2024 at 11:00 AM
Horror brings the sentimental novel into focus: Charles Brockden Brown’s distillation.
Irena Klepfisz
December 1, 2024 at 12:56 AM
Irena Klepfisz
George Quasha
November 20, 2024 at 9:16 AM
George Quasha
No one quite like Marianne Moore, in criticism as well as poetry.
November 15, 2024 at 1:43 PM
No one quite like Marianne Moore, in criticism as well as poetry.
While claiming it can’t be done!
November 14, 2023 at 9:59 AM
While claiming it can’t be done!
He had that beef…then wrote a preface for Harold Norse’s translations of Belli’s sonnets. Poets.
October 12, 2023 at 11:19 PM
He had that beef…then wrote a preface for Harold Norse’s translations of Belli’s sonnets. Poets.
A poem of mine from more than a decade ago—and things have only gotten worse. Free Palestine.
October 9, 2023 at 4:37 PM
A poem of mine from more than a decade ago—and things have only gotten worse. Free Palestine.
Search drinks in your camera roll
October 6, 2023 at 8:56 AM
Search drinks in your camera roll
Early American Literature
October 4, 2023 at 2:55 PM
Early American Literature
William Shurr created 500 new Emily Dickinson poems by rendering passages from her letters as verse. It got a fair amount of attention when published in ‘93 but I can’t recall it ever being used in scholarship. When I saw this, in Diacritics, I actually smiled. A+ unexpected source for an epigraph.
October 3, 2023 at 11:50 PM
William Shurr created 500 new Emily Dickinson poems by rendering passages from her letters as verse. It got a fair amount of attention when published in ‘93 but I can’t recall it ever being used in scholarship. When I saw this, in Diacritics, I actually smiled. A+ unexpected source for an epigraph.
“If only you didn’t bleed said the knife I wouldn’t/have to do this./I know said the cut I bleed too easily I hate/that I can’t help it I wish I were a knife like/you”—May Swenson
September 30, 2023 at 12:18 PM
“If only you didn’t bleed said the knife I wouldn’t/have to do this./I know said the cut I bleed too easily I hate/that I can’t help it I wish I were a knife like/you”—May Swenson
I thought it might be the Loch Ness Monster but was told it’s a heron or egret.
September 27, 2023 at 10:48 PM
I thought it might be the Loch Ness Monster but was told it’s a heron or egret.
Charlie Watts assembled an amazing collection of rare books. I’m going through the descriptions now: Beckett inscribed to Giacometti, Langston Hughes inscribed to George Gershwin, Gershwin’s copies of W. C. Handy and James Weldon Johnson. Crazy stuff!
September 16, 2023 at 8:29 PM
Charlie Watts assembled an amazing collection of rare books. I’m going through the descriptions now: Beckett inscribed to Giacometti, Langston Hughes inscribed to George Gershwin, Gershwin’s copies of W. C. Handy and James Weldon Johnson. Crazy stuff!
Here’s one by Anselm Hollo
September 9, 2023 at 12:26 AM
Here’s one by Anselm Hollo