Research & Innovation

In Mentor and Muse, a collection of twenty-nine insightful essays by some of today’s leading poetic minds, editors Blas Falconer, Beth Martinelli, and Helena Mesa have brought together an illuminating anthology that draws upon both established and emerging poets to create a one-of-a-kind resource and unlock the secrets of writing and revising poetry.

Gathered here are numerous experts eager to share their wisdom with other writers. Each author examines in detail a particular poetic element, shedding new light on the endless possibilities of poetic forms. Addressed within are such topics as the fluid possibilities of imagery in poetry; the duality of myth and the personal, and the power of one to unlock the other; the surprising versatility of traditional poetic forms; and the pleasure of collaboration with other poets. Also explored in depth are the formative roles of cultural identity and expectations, and their effect on composition; advice on how to develop one’s personal poetic style and approach; the importance of setting in reading and meaning; and the value of indirection in the lyric poem. Challenges to conventional concepts of beauty are examined through Shakespeare’s sonnets, and the ghost of Longfellow is called upon to guide students through the rewards and roadblocks of writing popular poetry. Poetic persona is demystified through Newton’s law of gravity, while the countless permutations of punctuation are revealed with analysis of e. e. cummings and W. S. Merwin.

The essays include the full text of the poems discussed, and detailed, relevant writing exercises that allow students the opportunity to directly implement the strategies they have learned. While many advanced topics such as authenticity, discordant music, and prosody are covered, this highly readable volume is as user-friendly as it is informative. Offering a variety of aesthetics and approaches to tackling the issues of composition, Mentor and Muse takes poets beyond the simple stages of poetic terms and strategies. These authors invite students to explore more advanced concepts, enabling them to draw on the traditions of the past while at the same time forging their own creative paths into the future.

Gripping and terrifying, eloquent and heartwrenching, this debut collection delves into hellish territory: prison life. Soulful poems somberly capture time-bending experiences and the survivalist mentality needed to live a contradiction, confronting both daily torment and one's illogical fear of freedom.

The Retreat receives writers for 10 months of the year. It houses six writers at a time, known as Hawthornden Fellows, in sessions lasting four weeks each.

 

Recipient of James A. Robinson Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching of Writing in 2010

Marilee Lindemann considers the influence a single seminar with Susan Gubar had on her life – and worries that today’s public university students are less likely to meet the mentors who could inspire their intellectual dreams.

Physical law has it that 'what pokes out gets hit.' Limbs, noses, and jaws are blown off. There are mastectomies. Prosthetic reconstruction is 'flesh displaced.' Some of those who experience it learn that there is now between them and the ones they love a wall of cancelled desire. 'One can adjust to this, they say, but not // from it.' Losses such as these italicize how unlikely it was to begin with that any soul should ever have made its way into a body out of the oblivion that precedes birth. Death too is that oblivion. Its 'fingers' open the face out of which 'something // inner joins the surface' as soon as the eyes ask for help.

Judith Skillman's "The Sister," which I accepted for Seneca Review earlier this year, was striking for recasting Cain as sister and memorably arresting for the feral fierceness of the portrait. Her other poems in The Never are equally astute, unsentimental and unflinching; her identification with the icons and motions of mythology, the armature for so many of the poems here, derive from their visceral passions. These poems sizzle with elemental directness and judgment, linguistically sharp and probing. Like the never which seems indistinguishable from the always, this book aims for elemental truths which give us the comfort of no-comfort. That makes poems in this collection something to trust. --David Weiss, Editor, Seneca Review Pay careful attention to the lines of Wheatland's: "to travel is to dream of wheat...to dream is to revel in scenery...to sleep is to travel inside the germ and the chaff." To read The Never is to venture into a mysterious world of the plain and the mystical, "the drape and pleat of hill and valley" that sustains us. --Tina Kelley, The Gospel of Galore Few poets seize the natural world in the tender, particular ways that poet Judith Skillman does...For a poet who sees this world as does Skillman, nature's beauty and cruelty is ours as well. --Chicago Sun-Times Book Review Skillman's was the first truly brilliant poem I ran across on my poetic journey, and I was in awe of the sheer skill of her line breaks, movement, and control... Much like Heather McHugh, Skillman is a 'poet's poet,' and to read her work makes me rejoice, as poet, in the possibilities of the art itself. --The Pedestal Magazine, Terri Brown-Davidson

The first kiss reminded her of raspberry sherbet… And no man's kiss has since matched that wonderful, summery essence in all its glory. LilyRose knows her rare ability to "see" sounds and "taste" shapes—synesthesia— is a gift that defines who she is…but it's also made her an object of ridicule. And made her an outcast. That is, until a mean-spirited customer mocks a young girl—and kindred spirit—she's befriended. Years of repression suddenly give way when LilyRose hurls a basket at that customer. And finds herself being escorted from her shop in handcuffs! For decades LilyRose has searched for that special man who could teach her to embrace her uniqueness. She just didn't expect to find him waiting to pick her up from jail….

Leading authors in the field of early modern studies explore a range of bad behaviours - like binge drinking, dicing, and procuring prostitutes at barbershops - in order to challenge the notion that early modern London was a corrupt city that ruined innocent young men.

In her first collection, Julie R. Enszer offers poems that are as unabashedly erotic as they are unabashedly feminist. Whether responding to queer cultural icons, fantasizing about sex, or mourning illness and loss, these poems are sweet and sultry, fierce and tender. From demonstrations on the streets to bedroom romps, these smart and sexy poems interweave narrative and lyrical moments with the political and the sensuous. Handmade Love renders a world that delights in the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and tells queer life stories sublimely and generously.