Essays on Poetry
"Criticism is like politics: if you don't make your own you are by default
accepting the status quo and are finally yourself responsible
for whatever the status quo does to you."—Annie Finch, "Letter to a Young Woman Poet" in The Body of Poetry
GENERAL ESSAYS ON POETRY
What is Poetry?
Adapted from The Body of Poetry
Listening to Poetry
Harriet, Poetry Foundation
The Poetry of Autumn
Poetry Foundation
The Poetry of Deep Winter
Poetry Foundation
On Compiling a Selected Poems
Musings on the occasion of assembling Spells: New and Selected Poems from the Stonecoast Faculty Blog
Can Poetry Have a General Audience?
Harriet, Poetry Foundation
Valentine’s Day Recommendation
Inside Higher Education Journal
The Inaugural Poetry Test
Thoughts on the inaugural poem for President Obama’s second inauguration
Annie blogging at the Poetry Foundation
65 posts by Annie on many aspects of poetry and poetics on Harriet, the blog of the Poetry Foundation
METER AND FORM
The Body of Poetry
Academy of American Poets website
The Freedom of Meter
The Boston Review
Trochees: An African American Tradition
Harriet, Poetry Foundation
Chas in Fourteen Lines: Reformations and Deformations of the Sonnet
Contemporary Poetry Review
In Defense of Meter
Expansive Poetry Online
Review of Rethinking Meter by Alan Holder
American Book Review
Kegels for Poets
Harriet blog, Poetry Foundation
What is Poetry?
at anniefinch.com
How to Scan a Poem
From A Poet's Craft
WOMEN’S POETRY
Why I Am A Women Poet
Harriet, Poetry Foundation
How to Create a Poetic Tradition
from The Body of Poetry (University of Michigan Press, 2005)
Originally published on WOM-PO (Discussion of Women’s Poetry Listserv).
Female Tradition as Feminist Innovation
Poetry Foundation
How to Publish Women Writers
A response to VIDA’s “count” of the number of women in print
Visiting Carolyn Kizer: Mentorship From a Woman Poet is No Small Thing
Poetry Foundation
CONTEMPORARY POETRY
Kegels for Poets
Harriet blog, Poetry Foundation
A Moment with Maxine (and Robert and Henry)
Harriet blog, Poetry Foundation
Technology and Inspiration
Kritya Magazine (India)
Visiting Carolyn Kizer: Mentorship From a Woman Poet is No Small Thing
Poetry Foundation
Widening the Conversation: Edward Hirsch Holds Forth on his Poet’s Glossary
Poetry Foundation
CLASSIC POETS
An Evening With Forugh Farrokhzād: Iranian Poetry Night
Harriet blog, Poetry Foundation
Discovering Dunbar
Harriet, Poetry Foundation
How Claude McKay Changed History with Trochees
Lemonhound
On Leonie Adams
Foremothers Corner, Wom-Po Website
Phillis Wheatley and the Sentimentist Tradition
at Romanticism on the Net, issue edited by Laura Mandell
Dickinson as a Poetess
in Titanic Operas: A Poets’ Corner of Responses to Dickinson’s Legacy, ed. Martha Nell Smith
The Poetess in America
adapted from Annie’s article in the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Poetry
MORE ON POETICS
An Unsung Singer
An essay from Legacy that analyzes the poetry of Lydia Sigourney in order to develop an alternative model of poetics in addition to the the ego-centered poetics of Romanticism and post-Romanticism. The “sentimentist” poetic approach requires a completely different set of evaluative criteria from Romanticism; for example, it makes room for multiple voices and perspectives, assuming a permeable sense of the poetic self. It is irrational to judge or evaluate the quality of poetry written in the sentimentist tradition according to Romantic standards. Only by taking into account the model according to which the poetesses wrote can we understand, appreciate, or assess the the importance of their poetry.
Annie blogging at the Poetry Foundation
65 posts on Harriet, the blog of the Poetry Foundation