Palmer on Poetry: 197.3 December 2010

December's copy of Poetry has been sitting with a Cross been stabbed through its unfinished pages since my last review post. This has been partially because of the business of the season (Thanksgiving-through-New Year's Day is a festive blur in the Palmer house). But I have two other, mostly unread, copies of the magazine staring at me and AWP glancing over its back at me from two weeks' time. I'd really rather have as many reviews as possible done by then (especially as I'm now flying and not taking the train).

The December issue is called "The Q&A Issue" and covers a scant Baker's Dozen poets (though really that number is reduced as three of the poets are dead Italians here translated by Geoffrey Brock). According to the Poetry Foundation website there was another Q&A issue in April of 2010 (prior to my subscription starting). I hope these don't become a trend but judging from some of the letters-to-the-editor in the February issue, they just might. For my part, I found the majority of the question-and-answer sessions to be extraneous at best. Indeed, they're the reason it took me so long to get through the issue as most of the readings were a slog.

Poetry
Volume 197
Issue 3
December, 2010

Michael Robbins
Paula Bohince
Tom Pickard
John Tranter
Charles Baxter
Jane Hirshfield
Clemente Rebora
Giovanni Pascoli
Attilio Bertolucci
David Roderick
Linda Gregerson
Vijah Seshadri
Sina Queyras
Belle Randall

There are no gravestone endsheets in this issue.

Apologies for the earlier post. Blogger was having problems today. That was a draft. I don't have much to say about this issue, but I want to get to January and February.