March Theme : WAR

Notes on the definitions of war and poetry

Throughout the month of March, Ares season, we are going to look at poems and other media related to the theme of War. Daily poems will look at war drawn from an array of authors, styles and historical periods.

Paid subscribers will receive each weekend a feature essay focused on our March Poet: Alice Notley, whose “White Phosphorus” was one of the first poems of hers I ever read. I consider it also one of the great anti-war poems ever written. We’ll have an ongoing Study Group centered around Notley’s work throughout the month. Please feel free to join us.

The first essay will focus on Notley’s life; the second on a specific poem of hers (“Homer’s Art”); the third on the context of the feminist epic and the poetic imagination; and finally, for the fourth weekend I’ll draw on some excerpts from extensive interviews I conducted last summer with Notley in Paris concerning her life and work, myth and anarchist feminism, the occult and spiritual.

Four ways I want to examine the theme of War in poetry this month: