Jerome Rothenberg

Poems and poetics

Finishing Cavafy’s 'Unfinished' (five unfinished poems from C.P. Cavafy)

Trans-compositions from Greek & commentary by George Economou

David Hockney, from 14 Poems from C.P. Cavafy 1966-67
David Hockney, from 14 Poems from C.P. Cavafy 1966-67

[These five poems are based on diverse drafts and fragments preserved in the Cavafy archive and published along with proposed reconstructions in the collection of thirty texts entitled ATELI POIEMATA (Unfinished Poems) edited by Professor Renata Lavagnini of the University of Palermo (Athens: Ikaros Press, 1994).  “The Newspaper Story,” the first poem in Lavagnini’s Greek edition, appeared earlier on Poem

Jerome Rothenberg: Ezra Pound, Wai-lim Yip, & Chinese poetry in America (A tribute)

[NOTE.  For nearly forty years now Wai-lim Yip, a major Chinese poet-scholar, has been our (almost) neighbor & close friend in southern California.  His reputation in the United States has mostly focused on his critical writings on Ezra Pound (Pound’s Cathay & other seminal works) & on his Chinese Poetry: Major Modes and Genres, which greatly expands & clarifies the Pound & Fennolosa approach to “the Chinese character as a medium for poetry.”  What these English works mask however is the extent of his prolific & influential writin

Clayton Eshleman, from 'PENETRALIA': 'The Dream’s Navel'

For Stuart Kendall

 Gotham Bar & Grill in Manhattan, dining with Caryl, Cecilia & Jim.

At a table near ours, alone, a woman in whose face I saw the face of death.

At one point she turned toward me:

I could only stay in her black ray lane a few seconds.

David-Baptiste Chirot: Félix Fénéon, conceptual poetry, & the animated other (redux)

[Himself on the cusp between “outside” & “inside” poetry & art, Chirot, whose work, both verbal & visual, is a great too often hidden resource, writes from an authoritative if  barely visible position in contemporary letters.  The Fénéon commentary excerpted here is from a longer essay/talk, “Conceptual Poetry and its Others,” written for a symposium at the Poetry Center of the University of Arizona, 29-31 May 2008 & appeared earlier in the blogger version of Poems and Poetics.  The depth & breadth of his more recent work is outstanding. (J.R.)]

Jerome Rothenberg: Six Likht variations, with 'Snakes & Stones' (a poem in progress)

[Written in the process of reading Mikhl Likht’s Protsesiye/Processions along with the translation from Yiddish by Ariel Resnikoff & Stephen Ross, while following the procedures set earlier in The Lorca Variations.  A tribute both to Likht & to his language.]