Stephanie Burt is a poet and professor of English literature at Harvard. She is the author of Randall Jarrell and His Age, The Art of the Sonnet and After Callimachus, a selection of translations, some of which were first published in the LRB. Advice from the Lights, a collection of poems, came out in 2017. SUPER GAY POEMS is due next year.
where I grew upit was all wonderful anddefensive
the adults were kindand never neglectfulbringing fresh water and
grapes oranges and juiceand sunscreen always askingeach kid what we would
need or might need in theanticipated future with itsgoldenrod-bordered
cleared fieldits soft blacktopits estimated yield
we were told to look upwith reason to keeplooking forward
to a cloudless...
Doppelgangbanger, the second collection of poems by Cortney Lamar Charleston (Haymarket, £12), describes growing up Black in white suburbia. In ‘Hip-Hop Introspective’:
Kids ask what FUBU means. White girls look at meconstantly. DMX never seems to be screaming.The underground heads north on my playlistswhile an old poster peels away from the wall.I’m beside myself...
Visual depictions of suicide kill. We buried Melanie that morning;the day after, Basil died. I don’t know what he saw,or what she did, but I know I’ve seen too many pictures of obliviondone up as heaven –This isn’t a poem so much as a warning. ...
A ‘Mary Sue’ is an implausibly skilful, attractive or successful protagonist who seems to be a stand-in for the author, especially in fanfiction. The term comes from Paula Smith’s parodic story ‘A Trekkie’s Tale’ (1973), originally published in a mimeographed journal for Star Trek fans. In mocking ‘Mary Sue’, Smith was not attacking fanfiction...
Where Now is Laura Kasischke’s tenth book of verse (Copper Canyon, £23). She has also written young adult novels, science fiction, historical fiction, books you might label as mysteries or thrillers, and realist novels about present-day adults – 22 books in all over 25 years. Usually, when I read a big Selected, I find myself thinking about how the poet has changed, how...
Sonnets have no rival. They’ve been written about kingfishers, love, squirrels, the moon (too often), God, despair, more love, grief, exultation, time, decay, church bells beyond the stars...
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