“Except for my less than two years at Stony Brook, I’ve never been in any scene or community, ever.” 

“Arendt’s poem tells the story of her farewell to Europe and her arrival in the United States in a dozen lines of verse. But it’s also a self-aware work of art that quietly asserts its own place in the German poetic tradition.”

”If you attended school in the U.S. like I did, the first poem you wrote as a child was, more likely than not, some version of the Japanese haiku.“

“Maybe wonder, like the moon, has a dark side.”

“You can eavesdrop on the kind of advice Glück would give young writers, at once metaphysical and down-to-earth, in this issue.”

“Glück’s death marks a line break, but not a full stop.”

“The Ford Motor Company once invited Marianne Moore to float possible names for a new sedan.”

“On hot summer days, Richard Nixon would light a roaring blaze in the fireplace of his White House study, crank the air conditioning up to full blast, put on a little Mantovani, and gaze out the window at the Washington Monument.”

“Here’s to oracular typos and scrambled eggs!”

“Much of my new job involves sifting through the slush pile for unexpected gifts.”