Poetry Archive

Anna Akhmatova - "Poetry is respected only in this country,” said Russian poet Osip Mandelstam. “There's no place where more people are killed for it.” Anna Akhmatova --- Russia's most beloved female poet ---

April is Poetry Month. Here are 9 great poets and 9 great poems. And Robin Williams. - SHOPPING ON AMAZON: As an Amazon Associate I earn a modest commission from qualifying purchases. How does that work? You start on Butler, buy something on Amazon, Butler gets a

Bertolt Brecht: Selected Poems - You know that Bertolt Brecht was a playwright. What about his poems? News to you, you say. Not really --- you know some of them. Like: Or how about: The fact is, Brecht

By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives - What a pleasure to welcome a new Guest Butler, Ruth Gendler. She’s both writer and artist, equally admired in each field. In l984, she self-published The Book of Qualities. It

C.P. Cavafy - Constantine Petrou Cavafy (1863-1933) may be one of the greatest poets of the last century, but he's mostly known for one poem. It was the favorite of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis,

Citizen: An American Lyric - An incident: It’s finally your turn, and then it’s not as he walks in front of you and puts his things on the counter. The cashier says, Sir, she was next.

Donald Hall - Donald Hall died. In the Times, he got the Great Man obit. He earned it. It is easy to say that Donald Hall is the successor to Robert Frost. His family

Dorothy Parker - She was a Rothschild --- just not a Rothschild with any link to the rich Rothschilds. Her mother died a month before her fifth birthday, her stepmother died when she was

Frank Bidart: Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016 - Eight books, collected in one. 736 pages in a beautifully produced hardcover. Half a century of poetry. Frank Bidart is the 2017 winner of the National Book Award for Poetry, the

Greg Pardlo - Greg Pardlo submitted “Digest,” his slim book of poems, to the major publishers. All rejected it. He sent it to Four Way Books, which is, like the poet, literary and

Kabir: Ecstatic Poems - Did you know there were stand-up comedians in India in the 1400s? Me neither --- until I read Kabir. Why? Because Kabir was playing the greatest comic role of all --- God's

Kate Tempest - The program is archived, available all week, but I treat “Cavalcade” as appointment listening --- on Sunday nights, you can find me writing with one ear on Paul Cavalconte’s exquisite

Louise Glück: Reading her, you get the feeling that her struggle is your struggle, that she somehow knows how it is for you. - Louise Glück --- it’s pronounced “Glick”--- died. Large obit in The Times.  Big Butler review for her last book of poems. She won the Nobel Prize for Poetry. She was

Louise Glück: Winter Recipes from the Collective - The best book of short stories I read this year is Louise Glück’s book of poems, “Winter Recipes from the Collective.” 15 poems. 64 pages. And no “poetic” language ---

Maeve Kinkead: A Dangling House - Maeve Kinkead was in my class at a small New England boarding school. If I didn’t really know her there, it was because I was awestruck and --- rare for

Maggie Smith: Good Bones - In 2015 Maggie Smith sat in a Starbucks in Bexley, Ohio, and wrote a poem on a legal pad. She didn’t think “Good Bones” was her best poem, but she

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) - Mary Oliver has died. She was 83. Appropriately, her obituary in the New York Times cites her poem, "When Death Comes." When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I

Monsoon Solo: Voices Once Submerged - Norman Mailer said you don’t really know a woman until you’ve met her in court. I say you don’t know a woman until you’ve read her poems. If I had to pick

Poetry Month - Poetry Month. About time. There’s never enough poetry in our lives. Do savor this smorgasbord of Head Butler poetry favorites. C.P Cavafy Cavafy was a journalist, then a clerk --- for

Poetry Month, Part 2: “And did you get what/You wanted from this life, even so?/I did./And what did you want?/To call myself beloved, to feel myself/Beloved on this earth.” - Was it only a week ago that I posted Part 1 of the Poetry Month special? So much happened. And one dominant event: the trial of Derek Chauvin. Watching that