POETRY MONDAY

Ross Gay

The poetry of Ross Gay has drawn much attention lately – and with good reason.  His poems, mostly in the lyric narrative mode, are striking in their energy and compassion.

Born in Ohio, he grew up outside of Philadelphia and has a Ph.D. in American Literature from Temple University. A painter and basketball coach as well as a poet, he teaches at Indiana University and in the new, low-residency MFA program founded by Gerald Stern at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.  

Here, for reading on our first September Monday, are three poems by Ross Gay.  The first, “Season of Dreams,” is a new, unpublished poem he selected personally for our readers.  The other two are from a book I can’t recommend highly enough, Against Which, published by CavanKerry Press.

                                                                     Irene Willis
                                                                     Poetry Editor

THREE POEMS BY ROSS GAY

POETRY MONDAY

 Richard Berlin

Although Richard Berlin is a psychiatrist in private practice in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the author of many scientific papers, I know him as a poet – and a fine one, at that.  I first encountered his work when he read from his newly published chapbook of poems, Code Blue, at a local bookstore some years ago.  There were other poets reading, but his poems stood out for their honesty, direct language and subject matter that was rarely dealt with in poetry. We are still lacking, to a large degree, poetry from the world of work, and here was someone who was writing it out of necessity and urgency.

Since then, Berlin has gone on to publish a full-length collection, How JFK Killed My Father, which was published by Pearl Editions and won the Pearl Poetry Prize.

His most recent book is not his own poetry but a collection of essays by other poets, Poets on Prozac (Johns Hopkins University Press), which, despite its pop title, is a serious look of the effect of mental illness and treatment on the creative process.

Here, by Richard Berlin, are two new, unpublished poems, “Freud” and “While Talking to a Psychoanalyst at a Party” and a third, “What a Psychiatrist Remembers,” which received a Robert H. Winner Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.

 The following article appeared in Winter 2007 newsletter of Division 39 (Psychoanalysis) American Psychological Assn and appears here with all requisite rights and petitions. Henry M. Seiden. He does a regular  quarterly column on poetry and psychoanalysis  there. 

Old Pond, Frog Jump In. . . .
Henry M. Seiden, Ph.D. ABPP

Poetry Monday: Jeff Friedman

Jeff Friedman 

POETRY MONDAY
July 7, 2008

POETRY MONDAY: June 2, 2008
 

Michael Waters
 
It’s my pleasure this month to introduce the distinguished poet Michael Waters, whose publications include eight collections of poetry and numerous anthologies and critical works.  Among his awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maryland Arts Council, three Pushcart Prizes, and residencies in Ireland, Switzerland and on Malta.  His readings, workshops and visiting professorships have taken him throughout the U.S. and abroad, including Prague, Baghdad, Iasi (Romania) and Toulouse.  A longtime professor of English at Salisbury University in Maryland, Michael Waters will be assuming a similar position at Monmouth University in New Jersey in September 2008.