28 Feb 2011, Posted by in Blog, 0 Comments Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Cave Canem Prize Winner Iain Haley Pollock: An Interview


by Dilruba Ahmed

Meet Iain Haley Pollock: Philadelphia-based poet, English teacher at Chestnut Hill Academy, and co-host with his partner Naomi of an occasional culinary smackdown based on “Iron Chef.” Iain’s first book of poems, Spit Back a Boy, won the 2010 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and will be published in June 2011 by the University of Georgia Press. I conducted the following interview with Iain via e-mail, but you might imagine the ambient noise of Hobbes Coffeshop in Swarthmore, PA, where Iain and I have met from time to time to talk about poems: a whirring espresso machine and clattering mugs. Fork tines clinking into bowls of an elusive truffled macaroni that suddenly disappeared from the local menu. The tap-tap of Iain adding more ketchup* to his macaroni. And amid the clamor of the everyday, the sound of Iain reading aloud a remarkable poem called “Chorus of X, the Rescuers’ Mark,” a poem that I am thrilled to share here in an audio clip as part of this interview, along with Iain’s comments on the major preoccupations of his manuscript, poetic inspiration and form, and the recent controversy over Tony Hoagland’s poem, “The Change.”

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21 Feb 2011, Posted by in Blog, 0 Comments Tagged , , , , , ,

Come A Little Bit Closer Now Baby: Philip Larkin’s “Church Going”


by Gray Jacobik

“Church Going” is an atheist’s poem, an ironic atheist’s poem, and a very good one. I remember once hearing the poet, Jack Gilbert, say that one can distinguish the work of a good poet from the work of a great poet primarily by the effectiveness with which the latter controls tone. I always find considerations of tone and of mood an interesting pursuit.

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