Jonathan Russell Clark

What’s in a Name?: A Review of Carrie Bennett’s Lost Letters and Other Animals, Nicholas Wong’s Besiege Me, and Mark Leidner’s Returning the Sword to the Stone | Salamander #53

You can tell a lot about a poet by how they use nouns. An abundance of common nouns or abstract nouns usually means the poetry aims at loftier, grander themes. There is an ethereal quality to words whose referents are generalized—like some Platonic ideal of “bird” or “love” or “fingers.” One gets a sense of being high above the subject, gazing down at a panorama so vast as to preclude the use of specific, proper nouns. Continue reading…