"You had to be there . . ." The latest news from James Matthew Wilson

Think Journal's new issue is out, including my poem, "Premises." The issue was released during the Writing the Rockies conference, where I taught a three-day graduate workshop in poetic meter and rhythm, and where I also delivered a lecture, "Defining Poetry by Its Ends: Memory, Meter, Metaphor," as part of the annual critical symposium on poetry, hosted by Jan Schreiber.  While "Premises" is not available for reading online, you can  subscribe to Think's semiannual edition and support its efforts to renew metrical poetry in our day (click the logo at left).

---

If, however, waiting for an issue to arrive by post is too much to bear, then consider my latest poem in Dappled Things, "On a Palm."  There is indeed an unbearable desire within us to see and to know, and to make others perceive what we have experienced. (Click the DT logo at left.)

This poem shares the same title (and comes from the same poetic sequence) with another poem that will appear this fall in The Best American Poetry 2018.  I'll be reading the other "On a Palm" at the New School, in Manhattan, on September 20th.  Several authors from the anthology will also be coming to Villanova this February for a regional launch, reading, and celebration.  Check back here for news on that.

Next item: I'm pleased to inform you that Jerry White has made a nice film of my poem, "Autumn Road."  That poem first appeared in First Things and was one of those rare verses that resonated with so many readers that I found myself receiving notes for months afterward about its timely affect.  "Autumn Road" has been revised some since then, and White's filmed recording is of the version due to appear as the final poem in The Hanging God, which will be out this fall from Angelico Press. (The film is embedded at the bottom of this entry.)

The Hanging God, my second full-length collection of poems, will appear just in time for me to deliver the annual First Things poetry reading, on October 28th, in New York City.  That will be the second of several major readings I'll be giving in New York, here in Pennsylvania, in Dallas, and elsewhere, during the year ahead.  If you or someone you know might be interested in hosting me for a reading or lecture from Fall 2018-Spring 2019, you are welcome to click the Contact page and drop me a line.  I am just working out my schedule now.​  Once again, check back here regularly for more information on upcoming events.

---