Carl Dennis

Highlights of Poetry. Index of poetry. How to Write Poetry. New Books read.

How to write specific forms:
Haibun. Haiku. Hay(na)ku. Rengay. Tanka.
Concrete. Ghazal. Lai. Pantoum. Prose poem. Rondeau. Rubáiyát.
Sestina. Skaldic verse. Sonnet. Terza rima. Triolet. Tritina. Villanelle.

Poets: Adam Zagajewski. Billy Collins. Billy Collins exercise.
Snorri's Edda. Carl Dennis. Corey Marks. Franz Wright. Gary Young. The Gawain Poet.
Jack Gilbert. Jane Hirshfield. Jorie Graham. Karen Braucher. Kay Ryan.
Laureate Poets: Britain; USA.
Len Anderson. Li-Young Lee. Linda Pastan. Nordic Skalds. Pulitzer Poetry Prize (U.S.A).
Richard Hugo. Robert Bly. Sara Teasdale. Snorri's Edda. Stephen Dunn. Ted Kooser. W.S. Merwin.

Carl Dennis
Poems. Time Line. Books.
Carl Dennis featured in The Best American Poetry: 2006, Editor Billy Collins.

Poems.

Practical Gods.
Blog entry.

Educated but accessible poems, written in common speech that one might use in conversation, with no fear of cliché.

Authoritative poems that make statements.

The capitalization of each line sometimes makes them hard to read: there are no need for this affectation as the lines are not rhymed or consistently end-stopped: few poets do this deliberately these days unless they are unable to remove automatic uppercasing by Word.

My favorite poems include: "Not the Idle", "Pride", "On the Bus to Utica", "Halfway", "A Letter from Mary in the Tyrol", "Numbers", "Progress", "More Art", and "Basho".

Data:

40 poems, undivided into sections.
73 pages, about 1.8 pages per poem.
Number of stanzas:
- 10 poems are written in a single stanza.
- 3 poems in 3-line stanzas.
- 3 poems in 4-line stanzas.
- 2 poems in 5-line stanzas.
- The rest (22) are in odd-length stanzas:
  - 3 poems have 3 unequal stanzas.
  - 3 poems have 4 unequal stanzas.
  - 6 poems have 5 unequal stanzas.
  - 2 poems have 6 unequal stanzas.
  - 4 poems have 7 unequal stanzas.
  - 4 poems have 8 unequal stanzas.
33 poems need more than one page.
Acknowledges first publications in:
- American Poetry Monthly
- American Poetry Review
- American Scholar
- The Nation
- The New Republic
- Pivot
- Poetry
- Prairie Schooner
- River Styx
- Salmagundi
- Shenandoah
- Tri-Quarterly

Time Line.

1939.: Born September 17 in St. Louis, Missouri.
1961.: [Earlier, attended classes at Oberlin College and the University of Chicago.] Bachelors degree from the University of Minnesota.
2000.: Awarded the Ruth Lilly Prize from Poetry Magazine and the Modern Poetry Assocation for contributions to American poetry.
2001.: Poems: Practical Gods.
2002.: Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
2005.: Poems: New and Selected Poems, 1974-2004.

Books.

Links and Books

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