RobertAllenPoet @RobertAllenPoet Twitter profile

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RobertAllenPoet

4 months

I'm pinning this to the top of my page to say my chapbook, "Big Blue Hospital" is available from Bottlecap Press. A lot of the poems are about grief and loss, and always with the possibility of healing. I'd love it if you took a look.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

5 months

I just got this cool book: 320 deathbed poems. Sounds like a downer but they're not, just a different frame. The joy of dewdrops in the grass as they turn back into vapor -Koraku

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

Library discard score. You want to hear sad? It was discarded because it hadn’t been checked out since 1985. You want to hear happy? It’s on my bedside table now.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

I often forget that Leonard Cohen was as good poet as well as a songwriter.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

6 months

Adam Zagajewski, translated by Lillian Vallee

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

3 months

Alejandra Pizarnik

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

One of the things I love about Twitter: At 2am I could type, “I love Louise Gluck” and a conversation could follow, from places all over the world. It makes my brain bigger and my heart happy. Musk? Whatever. I’m here for the poetry and the people.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

8 months

Dylan Thomas, a section from his poem, “Vision and Prayer.” He keeps the ecstatic pitch the entire time.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

8 months

I realized I only know two poems by Auden, so this tonight. Hey Auden-fans, what’s your favorite poem by him?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 month

How come no one ever sat me down and said Robert, you need to read Bolano because you’ll love him? I’ve read two of his novels this month and they’re great. If you’ve read him, what’s your favorite novel or story? I want more.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

5 months

From “One Hundred Poems from the Japanese”’ translated by Kenneth Rexroth.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Fernando Pessoa, (writing as Alberto Caeiro) translated by Richard Zenith. Love it.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

5 months

what contemporary poet should I get obsessed with next

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

3 months

I'm reading long poems these days. just finished Paradise Lost and now I'm on WCW's "Paterson." It would be cool to read an epic I've never heard of, something new, ancient, or in -between. Have any recommendations for me? Thanks!

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Someone recommended Mary Oliver’s longish poem, “The Leaf and The Cloud” to me. It’s about 50 pages. It’s wonderful to be surprised by beauty, and I shouldn’t be surprised by Mary Oliver, but the poem is so easeful and good it’s quietly exciting. Here’s a bit:

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Edna St Vincent Millay on a subject that has been moving me lately, age. I like her resolution.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

21 days

“The Conference of the Birds”, an illustration from a manuscript of Attar’s poem of the same name. Early 1600’s, Persia. Just gorgeous.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

5 months

Robert Creeley

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

6 months

I’m in the mood for a novella, something short. Something magical. Something full of surprises. Any recommendations?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

What poetry is on your bedside table? Who’s blowing your mind right now? For me, it’s Creeley, who I haven’t read in years and I’m loving it. You?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

23 days

Alejandra Pizarnik translated by Yvette Siegert

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

10 months

I've been reading letters recently, first, Rilke's, then Keats'. I thought I didn't care for letters, but these were good. Who's your favorite letter-writer? I'm in the mood for more.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

Joy Harjo, from An American Sunrise

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

I saw an ad recently for a free book contest for "emerging poets." "Cool, I have a manuscript" I thought. Then I noticed you had to be under 40. How weird is that? I started publishing only at the beginning of the pandemic and I'm 57. Time for Medicare poems I guess 🫤

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

I’m on a Rilke binge and have always thought this to be a perfect poem. I just read it again after many years, and it is. Translated by Edward Snow.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 months

Edna St. Vincent Millay tonight. My favorite:

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Theodore Roethke with advice for living and dying.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 months

After lots and lots of recommendations, I started this tonight, and wish I could stay up all night reading it, or many nights: A wind turns the harbor's pages back to the voice that hummed in the vase of a girl's throat: "Omeros"

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

6 months

Did you know e.e. Cummings was a minister in a Boston church? I just found this out, then came across this poem today.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

4 months

I'm in the mood for a literary memoir. Maybe a poet who tells their own story? Or something else? Any suggestions appreciated. Thank you.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

6 months

Gary Snyder from his New and Selected Poems (Pantheon)

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Diane Seuss @dlseuss from "frank: sonnets." I think it's beautifully succinct with a rhythm and imagery that blows my mind. Who else is reading "frank: sonnets"?

[Intimacy unhinged, unpaddocked me]

Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.

www.poetryfoundation.org

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

I'm here for the poetry and the poets, well, all the writers, and the readers. It's like a bunch of neighbors talking shop, and that shop is poetry. I just felt like saying this with all the weird Twitter goings-on. I really like all y'all is my point, you're good neighbors.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

4 months

It's this guy's birthday: (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

9 months

Edna St Vincent Millay from her collected sonnets.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Ever have a poem you are so proud of, you think, “I did this and I like it” and it can’t find a home after a bunch of submissions? I have one like that now. I want to toss it so much, but it’s a darling, silly as that may sound. I can’t get rid of it. Ever relate?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

What poems are you reading? I’ve just started Diane Seuss’s Frank: Sonnets. It’s mindblowingly good. You?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Spending some time this morning with Louise Gluck. What are you reading today?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

23 days

Theodore Roethke in a visionary mood.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

10 months

"Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?" It's Rilke's birthday - As I get older, he's become a favorite poet. His intensity is astounding to me. What's your favorite Rilke Poem? "Every angel is terrifying."

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 months

Started the weekend with Neruda:

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Bernadette Mayer putting things in perspective.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

9 months

Who are 5 poets that were new to you in 2023 that blew your mind? And continue to move you? For me it was Marina Tsvetaeva, Frank O'Hara, Mahmoud Darwish, Diane Seuss, and C. Cafavy. I hadn't read any of them until this year, and they all swept me up. Who's on your list?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

7 months

Just got this today and thanks to @Foxphorescence for recommending this outstanding longish poem. I've never read Strand and I'm immediately struck by how good he is. Any Strand fans out there? "The burning/Will of weather, blowing overhead, would be his muse."

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

#poets , who’s on your bedside table right now?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

5 months

I wanted to share a poem from my new chapbook, Big Blue Hospital. The poem, "My Sudden Death" was first published by @Iterant_Mag

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

Osip Mandelstam on not being able to sleep

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

AHEM. If I'm not mistaken I just finished my poetry manuscript. Of course I'm scoured with doubt, do they suck, are they cliche, will people scoff a them as sophmoric? Poet Imposter Syndrome. But AHEM. I am finished and that feels pretty good.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

There was a young man From Cork who got limericks And haikus confused -anon

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

This evening, it’s Lucille Clifton keeping company.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

I began a poetry reading group last night, a thing I had never done before, only writing groups. It was so enjoyable I can't even say. Poetry lovers just talking about poetry is an awesome thing. One of my favorite things. Ok, my favorite thing. And with a group, just awesome

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

It’s Rilke’s birthday. I really got into him in the beginning of the pandemic. He made me want to learn German, but I didn’t, it was just a exciting thought. Sometimes it feels like some of his poems are made of light. From Sonnets to Orpheus, trans by Stephen Mitchell:

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

Cool used book score. Beckett? I knew he’d done this, but not the whole anthology. Looking forward to diving in.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

As I submit to publishers for my first book of poetry, I've come to mostly hate every poem I wrote prior to 2020-- many of the poems in the manuscript. I really hate them tonight. They all need revising. I'm not done or ready with the book I've decided. Poet's anxiety? Hell yes.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

8 months

Lucille Clifton from Blessing the Boats, New and Collected Poems 1988-2000 ( BOA editions)

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

I just accidentally disagreed with someone disagreeable. I don't want to have disagreements or arguments here. I love the poetry and the people, and the talent that exists here like no other social media platform. Here's to poetry and joy and kind discussion.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

4 months

What's your favorite book you own? It doesn't have to be "the best, only special to you, a rare book, a book full of memories? I have the George Dillon and Edna St Vincent Millay translation of Les Fleurs du Mal. So cool! And a gorgeous old book. How about you -special book?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

8 months

I didn't write a poem today, or read as much as I normally do, but I did make Meyer lemon marmalade and shortbread cookies, which I think does count for successful creative endeavor, right?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Spending the evening with Theodore Roethke.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

10 months

It’s William Blake’s birthday. He was so brilliant, and so weird. A fine mix.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

4 months

From my chapbook, Big Blue Hospital:

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

I listen to a lot of poetry on Spotify and made a kind of chronological list for myself and my poetry writing coaching clients. It's 22 hours longs because of Homer and Milton. It's what I could find there, so not everyone is represented. Enjoy it.

Lots of Poetry

Playlist · Robert Allen · 406 items · 57 likes

open.spotify.com

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

4 months

Another poem from my new chapbook.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

3 years

What’s your most recent online poetry publication? Share a link to it? I’m just curious and love new poetry. Go ahead and brag! Looking forward to your words.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

I just found out it's Wallace Stevens' birthday. I love that guy, but does anyone really understand "The Emperor of Ice Cream"? He's great but that poem makes no sense to me :) If you get it, let me know? :) He did write my very favorite poem:

Of Mere Being

Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.

www.poetryfoundation.org

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

In my 20s, I loved Carver's stories but not his poetry. Now I keep running into it, and I like it, a lot. The poems stay the same, but my relation to them has changed. They seem wise, quiet, lyrical, and thoughtful to me now.

Viktoriya Safi

@ToryKuzetova

1 year

💔"Late Fragment" by Raymond Carver #WritingCommunity #vss365

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

5 months

Yes! Look what came in the late mail~!

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

Wisława Szymborska

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Poets, I’ve got a fun question. Who’s your favorite novelist and why? I adore James Joyce because he writes prose like a poet, heightened language fused with meaning and a full musicality. Love that guy. So, poets, who’s “your” novelist?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

Rilke from The Book of Images, translated by Edward Snow. I’m up late reading poetry, per the usual.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

11 months

It's Rimbaud's birthday. It amazes me that he was so young when he stopped writing (age 20 or so). #poets , can you imagine? "I stretched out ropes from spire to spire; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance."

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

9 months

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be known as a good poet, but the desire to write good poems is more fruitful in the long run. -Delmore Schwartz

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

8 months

I just thought, "I should try writing a poem with a pen and paper and not my phone." The Gen Xer in me connects with that, but a younger part of me likes to write sonnets and odes on that little keyboard, with my thumbs. Any other phone-poets in the house?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Last night I finally saw "A Quiet Passion", about Emily Dickinson. Wow it was really good. It got me in the mood for other poetry movies. What's your favorite? I found this surprisingly long list -- just sharing to those interested:

Top 50 Poetry/Poets Movies

www.imdb.com

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

7 months

Denise Levertov from Collected Poems (New Directions)

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Hey poets with books out, what small publishing house have you enjoyed working with? What do you appreciate about them? I'm looking and I'm information gathering. thanks

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

I'm really happy to have two poems in issue 10 of Iterant, print and online editions. I'm grateful to the editors and I hope you like the poems.

Robert Allen - Iterant

The Running I’d been running away from us for years And just needed an excuse. So I went off, lost my mind, got sick at heart; depressed, disconnected, delusional. Whoever I once was once was gone...

iterant.org

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

Sonia Sanchez

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

7 months

My poetry weekend looks like this:

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

4 months

It’s Robert Creeley’s birthday. I love the easy play of this poem:

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

Cavafy longing. Translated by Rae Dalven

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

6 months

how am I supposed to get anything done when there's poetry

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Hey poets, 2022 is coming to an end. What publication (online magazine or print) are you proudest of this year? Share a link to you poem or poems? I'm always interested in what we as poets consider our own best work.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

6 months

I'm really grateful to Bottlecap Press for publishing my new chapbook. It's about love lost and found, illness, and doubt. Poetry-stuff. I tried to write something moving and relatable. Available now: Big Blue Hospital and Other Poems, by Robert Allen

Big Blue Hospital and Other Poems, by Robert Allen

Poetry, chapbook, 32 pages, from Bottlecap Features. Big Blue Hospital and Other Poems rides the intersections of illness, both psychiatric and medical.

bottlecap.press

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

9 months

Stevie Smith. I don’t know why I love her so much, she’s silly, a singsong rhymester - but there’s more to it. Sometimes.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

9 months

#poets , Do you ever have an idea for a poem, and you think it's a really good one and you try to write it but it's just not right? Like the right words aren't there yet. You edit. Still not right. So you try again, add something, take something away, not right. My evening.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

1 year

About 10 years ago, I started reading almost exclusively poetry and stopped reading novels regularly. Novels sometime annoy me, so I start and stop, and read poetry instead. I own 100s of poetry books, and only one novel: an admission of literary guilt. Poetry'll get me over it

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Who's the best poet I've never heard of? I mean, who do especially love and think needs more popularity and attention?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

4 months

I’m still wanting to share all the poems in my new chapbook, “Big Blue Hospital.” Here’s a short and sad tale:

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

9 months

#poets , don't you love that feeling when you've been editing and revising the same poem for months, and it finally falls into place? That bucked up feeling? The little dance in your head?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

6 months

Hey #poets who's your favorite painter? I'm curious about what poets like in the other arts. Your personal favorite, not necessarily the best in art history. I love D.G. Rossetti his themes an colors. "Ecce Ancilla Domini!", his Annunciation, is a favorite. Who's yours? Pic?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

4 months

I've been poking around online looking for some good art as I want to write an ekphrastic poem. I've only done one other and it was fun. I decided on a Chagall and it's so beautiful I can't help but share. Damn, look how beautiful this is, seriously:

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

3 years

A poem of mine has been nominated for Best of the Net! WOOOOO HOOOOOO

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

3 months

I woke up this morning and it seems I'm 59 today. I was just sitting around living life and reading poems, and BAM! 59! My plans: "And I dance with William Blake For love, for Love's sake; And everything comes to One, As we dance on, dance on, dance on." -Roethke

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Kabir. Version by Robert Bly.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

9 months

As the year ends and a new one begins very soon, it made me think of Roethke's villanelle, The Waking, beginning "I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. Seems like a good jump start toward 2024.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 years

Hey #poets , who are you reading this weekend? I just got the collected poems of both John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara in the mail, so my weekend is decided. You?

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

6 months

I'm noticed a trend here on #poetrycommunity this weekend is whether or not Mary Oliver is a good poet. That somehow her accessibility makes her writing weak. To me, it just makes her poems more readily available, not a bad thing at all. It's just how she wrote.

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RobertAllenPoet

@RobertAllenPoet

2 months

From Kenneth Rexroth’s One Hundred Poems from the Chinese

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