The more I struggled to be plain, the more
Mannerism hobbled me. What for?
Since it had never truly fit, why wear
The shoe of prose? In verse the feet went bare.”
~James Merrill, The Book of Ephraim
In Verse the Feet Went Bare is a blog that was started in 2010 because there were almost no blogs dedicated solely to poetry. I’ve saddled myself with the contradictory task of discussing poetry in such a way that it is simultaneously thought provoking to those who are comfortable with poetry and inviting to those who still wear the shoe of prose.
Danielle Mebert is a poet and adjunct professor from New York. Her work has been published by Gloom Cupboard, Buzzard Picnic, Barefoot Muse, The Prose Poem Project, Writers’ Bloc, and the Write Room.
hola!
so i was stumbling about the steeplechase of the internet
looking for verse my eyes could ride and,
not finding the process as easy as expected
(i can only go through guggenheim and pen fellow pages
before my eyes feel saddled w/ the spiny glyphs
of unknown names), typed erika meitner into the P&W
search box and i saw you’d been reading Ideal Cities
lately.
(short aside: i was lucky enough to study w/ her at VT,
where she’s currently teaching and braving the brazen
brumal winds that rend all warmth to tatters,
and have been corresponding w/ her as of late
re: MFA potentialities/indispensibles
and remember her telling me Ideal Cities’ award
and imminent publication)
some vicissitudes later, i was her, reading your interviews
w/ delight at their perspicuity and
w/ disbelief at your modesty/the fact this IS the only prosodocentric blog i’ve been able to dredge from the internet’s miasma.
i started writing this reply w/ no real direction in mind
(inadvertant ars poetica?) than i guess just to say
that it’s great, that i admire your gumption and voice, and am intrigued by the alluded-to sestina, but won’t pry beyond an approbative nod.
but, so as to avert any purposelessness in this reply, so you don’t feel time spent untangling this is wasted,
i’ll offer my help in i guess w/e way you’d envision needing it,
since i imagine being a real live MFA student, in NYC no less,
can get frenetic, over-hectic, under-leisured,
and i’m leading a semi-sinecure life as software tester-cum-un-
published half-fledged poet in Buenos Aires
and woud love to get into a poetic swing of things
if it’s not too much to suggest/insinuate/intimate.
so yeah.
bon suerte, bon courage and i’m looking forward to more posts.
marcel