Bob Hicok’s Michigan

Sometimes things come together in funny ways. I was just checking out my friend Adam’s blog for the first time and came across his link to Bob Hicok’s poem “A Primer,” on The New Yorker’s fiction and poetry page (from May 19). It starts with a view of that Michigan hand, and it [...]

Being from the Michigan Hand

While I realize that the body as map runs the risk of cliche in poetry (not that it’s always cliche, just that it can run that risk), the hand as the map of Michigan seems like a slightly different genre. Growing up here, holding up my hand and tracing the lines between my parents’ [...]

Deepstep Come Shining

I’ve been thinking a lot about voice in poetry, lately. Not in terms of a poet “finding” his or her voice – rather, I’ve been thinking of the way poems take on various voices, and I’ve been thinking about the way a single poem can interweave more than one voice. I’m interested in [...]