Matthew Gagnon

Matthew Gagnon currently lives and works in western Massachusetts. His reviews and essays can be found in Jacket, The Literary Review, and The Poker, among others. Some of his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Hambone, The Nation, and WebConjunctions.

By this author

Migratory vernaculars

Recently in Jacket2

Outsider Poems, a Mini-Anthology in Progress (54): Incantation for Jaguar Macaw Madness

Translation from Mayan by Dennis Tedlock

Jerome Rothenberg

FOR THE DESIRE THIS MADNESS BRINGS:

May 24, 2013

The 8 best poet-on-poet profiles in Jacket's first 5 years

IMHO

Al Filreis

From left to right: Ann Waldman, Lytle Shaw, Rob Wilson, Marjorie Allen Seiffert

I took the pleasure recently of re-reading nearly everything published in the first 17 issues of Jacket magazine. Then I went back through quickly, identifying eight poet/critic-on-poet profiles that I found most impressive and memorable. Many of these I recalled from the first time I’d read them in the magazine. For what it's worth, here are — to me — the eight best essay-profiles published in the first five years of the magazine:

1. Eliot Weinberger on James Laughlin (#2; 1998)
2. Rob Wilson on Jack Spicer (#7; 1999)
3. Lytle Shaw on Frank O’Hara (#10; 1999)
4. Stephen Vincent on Joanne Kyger (#11; 2000)
5. Tom Orange on Clark Coolidge (#13; 2001)
6. Brian Kim Stefans on Ian Hamilton Finlay (#15, 2001)
7. Ann Waldman on Kenneth Koch (#15; 2001)
8. Catherine Daly on Marjorie Allen Seiffert (#17; 2002)