Poems By Heart

This one is a quickie. But a way to shout-out new Sewanee friend and amazing poet Frank Giampietro's brand-spanking-new website: Poems By Heart (http://www.poemsbyheart.org/). It's really a great idea (I think) and I'm thrilled to be a part of the first wave of poem memorizers, among such august company as Claudia Emerson and Alan Shapiro. It made me want to memorize more poems, and no, not just so I can reappear on Frank's kick-ass website (though that certainly factors in), but I do think it changes the way I think about a poem, how I try to understand its inner-workings. For this first round, I recite Fred Chappell's "A Prayer for Slowness," a poem I love, but still manage to botch just a bit. Check out the site! I promise it'll be worth your while...