By Elizabeth Petersen
 I take Szymborska’s lead when I say the hardest sentence of an elegiac blog post is the first. Well, now that one’s behind me.
In many cases, when a poet passes a small part of the world mourns. This little world of poets and poetry readers feels a tingeing of their hope, but soon a this too shall pass sigh becomes a sort of resolution, and they (we) try to carry on. Szymborska, though, feels different. After decades of remarkable work that spoke both to the social issues many poems fear to enter and the weird wonderment that many poems fail to achieve, I realize, in a childish way, that I never thought Szymborska would ever leave the world, that she was too good, too smart, for anyone to pull a fast one on her. And part …MORE
By David Blomenberg, Sycamore Review Contributor
J. A. Tyler has quite an astonishing number of works out recently, including INCONCEIVABLE WILSON, which was recently excerpted in PANK magazine, In Love with a Ghost, and, among other works, two chapbooks, and has no fewer than three books due out this year. What I’ve read of Wilson’s work focuses on the fragility of self, its parts, its dismantling. His most recent book A Man of Glass & The Ways We Have Failed shares this theme. “I remain, remainders,” the speaker in INCONCEIVABLE WILSON says, “the parts, pieces. I am dismantled. Tools and instruments and me taken apart.”
Even the genre Tyler writes in—he terms his longer works novel(la)s—dovetails with that sense of fractured identity. A Man of Glass… centers on one character’s point of view like a novella. It has stanzas instead of paragraphs, …MORE
by David Blomenberg, Sycamore Review Contributor
 My strange reading coincidences continue. Wayne Miller’s wonderful poetry collection The City, Our City (a review of which appears in our most recent print issue) was part of an uncanny string of books I was reading that had to do with the formation and destruction of cities. The very next two books I picked up after writing that review continued the trend. It was a bit spooky, to be honest.
With a title like Songs and Stories of the Ghouls, it might at first blush appear as if the release date (at the beginning of November) of Alice Notley’s latest book might be part of a Halloween-themed publicity campaign. But considering that few poetry books get a publicity campaign of any sort, and in spite of ghouls and blood-sacs (more on that anon) and scattered …MORE
by Jacob Sunderlin, Co-Editor of Poetry
Ron Padgett, poet, author of some twenty volumes, memoirist, collaborator, badass, septuagenarian, translator, Okie, grandfather, has earned himself the right to start a poem thusly:
There’s not a lot of time to think when one is assailed by activities and obligations and even less time to do it when one is free of them because then one spends one’s time thinking about how little time there is.
Sometimes, when talking about poems, poets, or recent collections with poet friends, I’ll try and distinguish between poets I like “as a writer of poems” (read: poets whose techniques I find “fresh,” whose “voice” I respect, whose “language” is “interesting”) and poets whose work I like “as a Jacob” (read: poets I want to drink for breakfast). This is sometimes an unpopular (read: schizophrenic) perspective, but—for me—is the …MORE
 by Jacob Sunderlin, Co-Editor of Poetry
When I was seventeen, I ganked the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry from the public library and found three poems by David Trinidad anthologized between Bob Kaufman and Woody Guthrie. This was—to my mind—pretty much the coolest thing ever. In his newly-published and completely-addictive Dear Prudence: New and Selected Poems, Trinidad has given us a prismatic funhouse of contemporary poetry, full of Yardley Slicker lipgloss, NRFB (never removed from box) collectible Barbie outfits, and Sylvia Plath. In this cultural detritus, Trinidad finds something thrilling, something human, and a poetry as formally unexpected and inventive as its subjects. He was kind enough to speak with Sycamore Review recently and discuss some his most recent projects.
Sycamore Review: This was a big year for you—your selected poems were published, as well as the …MORE
By Jessica Jacobs, Editor-in-Chief
 After Sycamore editors carefully culled 20 finalists from a Wabash Contest record of nearly 600 entries, former U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Glück has selected Maya Jewell Zeller and her poem “Caterpillars” as the winner of this year’s Wabash Prize for Poetry. Glück also chose Carrie Causey and her poem “Woman in the Wall” as this year’s contest runner-up. Both of these poems will be showcased in Issue 24.1, Winter/Spring 2011, along with work from selected finalists.
Thanks to all who submitted. We hope you will continue to support and enjoy Sycamore and will consider submitting your work to the 2012 Wabash Prize for Poetry next year.
Complete Results: 2011 Wabash Poetry Prize
Winner:
Maya Jewell Zeller
First Runner-Up:
Carrie Causey
Second Runner-Up:
Michael Tyrell
Third Runner-Up:
Grace Marie Grafton
Finalists: Terry Blackhawk Sage Cohen …MORE
by Jacob Sunderlin, Co-Editor of Poetry
One hundred and fifty-seven years ago today, a provocateur was born in France. Arthur Rimbaud—published by fifteen, retired by twenty, dead by forty—wrote famously in 1871: “I’m now making myself as scummy as I can. Why? I want to be a poet, and I’m working at turning myself into a seer. You won’t understand any of this, and I’m almost incapable of explaining it to you. The idea is to reach the unknown by the derangement of all the senses. It involves enormous suffering, but one must be strong and be a born poet. It’s really not my fault.”
Coincidentally, he who was “from the depths of the sea, back to the block”–Snoop D-O-double-G–was also born today, forty years ago.
We were recently treated to this wonderful new translation of Rimbaud’s sonnet “Rêvé pour l’hiver” by poet, physician, and translator Jenna Le, who …MORE
by Corey Van Landingham
Poetry Co-Editor
Dearest poets,
Do you know what I’m looking forward to doing this weekend? Well, other than bourbon and Ethiopian food, the answer is reading your entries to the Wabash Poetry Prize, judged by the one and only Louise Gluck! Tomorrow is the post mark deadline, so make sure you all get your best work together, go buy that ten pack of kraft clasp envelopes, some fancy, or not so fancy stamps, and put your name in the running to win $1,000. Do you know how much hot sauce that can buy? A lot. So send us your finest, because I hope that someday, your poems and I will be together.
by Corey Van Landingham Poetry Co-Editor
So remember when I said Jacob and I have big shoes to fill following the departure of Mario Chard and Josh Wild as Poetry Editors? Well, as we all know here at Purdue, their prowess doesn’t stop at putting together stellar issues of Sycamore Review.
In a couple of weeks, Mario will begin the first year of his Wallace Stegner Fellowship. California dreaming, indeed! We wish we were there to pack him a lunch on his first big day.
And Josh’s poem “Self-Portrait after Paul Morphy’s Stroke” appeared in the May 2011 issue of Poetry. He’s not “all thumbs” at all!
Dang. It’s getting hot in here, and it’s not just this dreaded heat wave.
We’re all incredibly proud of these guys, though we know that …MORE
by Corey Van Landingham Poetry Co-Editor
It’s been an exciting year for former Sycamore Review contributors, and we’re sure that more good news will continue to roll in.
First off, a belated congratulations to Issue 23.1 contributor Adam Day, whose chapbook, Badger, Apocrypha, was chosen by James Tate as a winner of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. We were lucky enough to be able to publish two of his poems, “A Polite History” and “To Rights, the Abattoir.” Congratulations, Adam!
Secondly, Ryan Teitman, whose haunting poem “Ode To a Hawk with Wings Burning” was featured in Issue 22.2, was a 2011 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship Nominee. What an honor–congratulations, Ryan!
Remember, our lovely contributors, we’re watching you.
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I take Szymborska’s lead when I say the hardest sentence of an elegiac blog post is the first. Well, now that one’s behind me.
