David Cherry's blog

Dealing with the Devil and Other Ill-Advised Undertakings

Submitted by David Cherry on Wed, 03/17/2010 - 9:23am

Cover Art: The Doré Illustrations for Dante's Divine ComedyFrom the Department of No One Asked Me, But...
I was re-reading parts of Dante's Divine Comedy last week and remembered why I had always felt so uneasy about the experience my first time through. Here's the thing: Hell is...well, How should I put this?...a heck of a lot more fun (to read, at least) than Purgatory and Paradise. The Inferno is fairly brimming with pleasingly sadistic little set pieces

Notes on Amphigouri*: Slithy Toves, Granfalloons**, and Cromulentishness***

Submitted by David Cherry on Thu, 03/04/2010 - 1:59pm

Illustration of the Jabberwock by Sir John Tenniel

Human language ranks even above the much-vaunted opposable thumb in my book. Sure, thumbs came in handy for our ancestors when it came to throwing spears at bison and such, but I think we can all agee that it was when humans developed the ability to order a mastodon sirloin rare with a side of sloth that things really started to take off progress-wise.

"A Writer First, A Woman After" --Katherine Mansfield

Submitted by David Cherry on Sat, 02/20/2010 - 12:38pm

Honestly, I do not know what possessed me to attempt to tackle this topic, but here it is: there is no essential difference between male and female poets. In fact, I would bet dollars to doughnuts that in a blind taste test, it would be nearly impossible to accurately guess the gender of any given poet by the poem alone.*** The range of approaches and poetic concerns within each gender grouping are just too vast; in other words the category "women poets" is so broad as to be nearly meaningless.

Lucille Clifton 1936-2010

Submitted by David Cherry on Thu, 02/18/2010 - 3:23pm

Cover Art: Wild Blessings: The Poetry of Lucille Clifton by Hilary HolladayLucille Clifton wrote as close to the bone as a poet can. She cut away much punctuation, all ornament and everything else that was superfluous to the task at hand. Her poems often had the rhythm of speech, but it was speech as one wishes speech could be. 

Love Poems For Valentine's Day: Guaranteed To Throw Sparks Or Your Money Back.

Submitted by David Cherry on Sun, 02/07/2010 - 6:38pm

Photo Credit: aliança by Rodrigo GianesiFor some people Valentine's Day is easy. They sow Necco Sweethearts like grass seed, believing each little saying imprinted on each little pastel-tinted heart to be meaningful if not oracular. Then there are the conspiracy theorists who claim to have documented proof that the Truffle Makers' Guild and the equally nefarious Greeting Card Poets' Bund are behind the whole charade.

And then there are the rest of us, swinging between hope and despair.

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