Poetry

Latest Articles

Michael Mazur, 1935 - 2009

Painter, printmaker, teacher, art historian, curator, political/social/arts activist, Red Sox and Celtics fan
"He was so alive ," a friend wrote to me a few days after Michael Mazur died, on August 18.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | August 26, 2009

Road trip

A lesbian journey through Maine's history
There comes a time in a woman's life when she just has to leave her husband at home with his mistress, toss her suitcase in a roadster, and head Downeast for a little timeout with her new, butch girlfriend. In July 1933, that's exactly what first lady Eleanor Roosevelt did.
By CAROLYN GAGE | June 24, 2009

Full shelf

The best in summer reading
Hot town, summer in the city. . . . or in the country. . . . or at the beach. Wherever you are, don't forget your books.
By BARBARA HOFFERT | June 08, 2009

Time Machines

New pictures from old negatives at the PPL
There is a golden formula in photography: photo plus time equals increasing allure. Old books and poetry, old television and movies can turn stilted, tedious. But photos seem to grow ever more compelling with age, even if the shots were boring when they were first made.
By GREG COOK | June 12, 2009

Giving good gimmick

Granta at 30
To sustain a literary magazine over decades it pays to have a gimmick.
By WILLIAM CORBETT | June 08, 2009

Warring with words

Maine team heading to national slam
Five local poets are heading to West Palm Beach, Florida, to represent Maine in the 2009 National Poetry Slam during the first week of August. The event has taken place in a different city every year since 1990; in 1995, Maine took fourth place, and last year the team split the field and placed 36 out of 80.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | June 10, 2009

Tours of duty

John Clifford and Billy Bang's Vietnam; plus Icons Among Us and bye-bye Jazz Brunch
Clifford and Bang will celebrate Memorial Day weekend together at Highland Kitchen in Somerville this Sunday in a program called "Basic Training: An Evening of Art, Music, and Poetry."
By JON GARELICK | May 18, 2009

Web-Slinger

Spider webs and plastic baby dolls at AS220
Liz Collins's Doll Cave at AS220's Project Space (93 Mathewson Street, Providence, through May 23) drapes the gallery with loosely-knit walls that look like spider webs or giant white granny shawls.
By GREG COOK | May 13, 2009

Frank Carlberg | The American Dream

Red Piano (2009)
Other jazz musicians have set the poetry of Robert Creeley to music. Here poetry takes on the form of incantation in the repetition of Creeley's short, oblique verses.
By JON GARELICK | April 21, 2009

And here's the verse part

The rivalry continues
I think it was Bashō who said, "Yankees suck three ways. So hard. So bad. Wicked bad."
By MIKE MILIARD | April 22, 2009

Portland Music News: April 10, 2009

Sibilance
We have a tentative street date for cheek-metal purveyors PIGBOAT 's new album, Float: April 21, with a release show later that week, April 25, at Geno's
By PORTLAND MUSIC STAFF | April 08, 2009

Mixed book bag

Reads to thaw out with
It looks like a good season run-up to beach reads, with new fiction from Denis Johnson and Aleksandar Hemon, biographies of Gabriel García Márquez and Cornelius Vanderbilt, and John Updike's final collection of poetry.
By BARBARA HOFFERT | March 16, 2009

Portland music news: March 13, 2009

Sibilance
Pianist/composer FRANK CARLBERG releases his new The American Dream with a show at Woodfords Church April 23.
By PORTLAND MUSIC STAFF | March 12, 2009

Pilgrimage

Alan Gilbert with the BSO, plus Collage New Music, Boston Baroque, and Teatro Lirico d'Europa
Charles Ives's Fourth Symphony is a stunner. And Boston Symphony Orchestra guest conductor Alan Gilbert, the New York Philharmonic's music director designate led a stunning performance.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 17, 2009

Ghazal Fine Indian Cuisine

A new neighbor tones down the décor and excels in spots
Ghazal provides a variety of dishes that Bukhara (the other Indian restaurant in the area) does not, plus warm service, competitive pricing, and mixed drinks.
By ROBERT NADEAU | February 26, 2009

On their way to Memphis

The Lomax mine the South, and the past, on their debut disc
Their name sort of gives them away.
By SAM PFEIFLE | February 11, 2009

Review: deca go go

S tream of surrealism
If you're enjoying Elemental Theatre's wild and whimsical deca*go*go at Perishable Theatre (through March 1), you're not likely to be reminded of Elizabethan sonnets, but think about it.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 29, 2009

Ring in the new

Haydn trios, Kirchner's 90th-birthday concert, Cantata Singers' Britten, Teatro Lirico's Aida
If 2009 lives up to the grace and power of some of the concerts that began it, we can look forward to a vintage year.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 20, 2009

You say what?!

On American campuses, Esperanto is an extracurricular language
When Professor Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof created the language called Esperanto in late-19th-century Poland, he envisioned a world unified under a lingua franca.
By EVA WOLCHOVER | January 09, 2009

Ghazal Fine Indian Cuisine

Far-ranging Indian, served with a smile
Years ago, I brought a date to Boston's oldest Indian restaurant (the bygone Kebab-n-Kurry), promising, "The food's great, but the servers are the surliest bunch you've ever seen — so sullen it's hilarious!"
By MC SLIM JB | January 08, 2009

More sex, more Lincoln

A hefty reading season, from Jayne Anne Phillips and T.C. Boyle to Pablo Neruda
The subject of Lincoln is like catnip to publishers (and readers), but the only things missing from our winter list are actual cat books.
By BARBARA HOFFERT | December 30, 2008

Year in Books: Word plays

Of werewolves and wastelands
Here, listed alphabetically by author, are 10 of the best works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry that the Phoenix wrote about in 2008.
By JON GARELICK | December 22, 2008

Review: My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poems of Jack Spicer

Strong spirits
Spicer believed that words are magic, that they have the power to "do" good and harm to people.
By WILLIAM CORBETT | December 19, 2008

Medicine men

Two Boston poets use their art for the good of the tribe
What if a poem had the power to heal loneliness?
By JAMES PARKER | November 28, 2008

Woof!

The BSO’s Carmina burana, the Cantata Singers, the Boston Camerata, and BLO’s Tales of Hoffmann
Probably most music lovers wouldn’t head their greatest-composer list with Carl Orff, despite the popularity of his violent, garish, sumptuously tuneful Carmina burana .
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 13, 2008

‘New music’ agenda

Modern works performed by the Bayside Trio
The Bayside Trio push the boundaries of modern classical music, performing works by living or recent composers.
By EMILY PARKHURST | October 22, 2008

Dance, Monkey: Baratunde Thurston

We put a comic on the hot seat. This week’s victim . . .
I saw Biz Markie in concert. He remixed “Just a Friend” to “Obama, you got what I need. Ooooobama youuu!” This is obviously the next big thing.
By SARA FAITH ALTERMAN | September 26, 2008

!!!!!!!!!!!!

Exclamation Point! diversifies its portfolio
The Exclamation Point! series started as an informal gathering of local poets, writers and theater folks, but this Saturday its organizers, the Fort Point Theatre Project, have broadened their scope and gone seriously eclectic.
By SUSANNA BOLLE | September 23, 2008

Yaddo and MacDowell: Works in Progress

Alone again, artistically: A glimpse of what it’s like to be present at the creation
This article originally appeared in the July 18, 1978 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
By D.C. DENISON | July 24, 2008

Frank Bidart’s ambivalent appetite

The poet probes human opposites in his latest collection
Frank Bidart adores the savage Catullan paradox.
By SVEN BIRKERTS | June 17, 2008

Best Music Poll 2009 winners

Today's Event Picks

[FILM] Films at the Gate 2009

Plus 4 more >>

HOT TOPICS

Photo David , Neko Case , Samuel James , AS220 , Monty Python , Jimmy Carter , Mitt Romney , Michael Jackson , National Football League , Deval Patrick