The Daily Mirror: A Journal in Poetry

by David Lehman

Following in the footsteps of such poets as Emily Dickinson, William Stafford, and Frank O'Hara, David Lehman began writing a poem a day in 1996 and found the experience so rewarding that he continued for the next two years. During that time, some of these poems appeared in various journals and on Web sites, including The Poetry Daily site, which ran thirty of Lehman's poems in as many days throughout the month of April 1998.
For The Daily Mirror, Lehman has selected the best of these "daily poems" -- each tied to a specific occasion or situation -- and telescoped two years into one. Spontaneous and immediate, but always finely crafted and spiced with Lehman's signature irony and wit, the poems are akin to journal entries charting the passing of time, the deaths of great men and women, the news of the day. Jazz, Sinatra, the weather, love, poetry and poets, movies, and New York City are among their recurring themes.
A departure from Lehman's previous work, this unique volume provides the intimacy of a diary, full of passion, sound, and fury, but with all the aesthetic pleasure of poetry. More a party of poems than a standard collection, The Daily Mirror presents an exciting new way to think about poetry.

Genres: Poetry

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 2000

About the author

David Lehman is a poet and the series editor for The Best American Poetry series. He teaches at The New School in New York City.

Reviews

[Kayli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a chronological collection of poems that follows David Lehman's musings each day for a year, which made for a quick and engaging read. He covers a range of topics including travel, love, loss, and family. Thankfully his musings are not thematic to the month and these topics stretch through the year. The poems themselves are a bit of a toss up; some are wonderful and hit you while others are a bit of a dud but poetry, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I think where I struggled most with Lehman is his tendency to be overly witty. I'm a firm believer that something either lands or it does not and he tends to try too hard. That being said, I did enjoy the collection overall and gave it three out of five stars. I would recommend it to anyone dabbling in modern poetry and I'll be continuing with his second collection, The Evening Sun.

[Abby Dimmick · Rating 2 out of 5]

in theory I really like the idea of a “one poem a day” project, but in this case I’m not sure what I expected - it turns out that some random pretentious man’s everyday thoughts are just as pretentious, non-unique, and boring as you can probably imagine

[Timons Esaias · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of calendrical poems is an interesting enterprise. There are many good lines, but few of the poems stood out as complete and memorable all on their own. Yet, yet, I quite enjoyed reading them, and will put the book on my to-be-reread list. It has a cumulative effect. He's a boxer, not a puncher.

Lehman explains in the Introduction that he practiced the discipline of writing a poem each day for a couple of years, each one titled by month and date, and then extracted 150 of them for this anthology, which presents them in order of the title date. It seems he had a to change a couple of titles, due to duplication.

A lot of them seem to have been written away from home, which I paid attention to. I write many of my poem drafts in coffee shops or the library, or killing time waiting for something. I liked the way he took a bit or two of what was happening and free-associated, then sometimes, but not always, looped back to the starting moment.

I'm pretty sure that many of them (like "June 30") were sparked by the Muzak playing when he took up his pen. Another ("September 9") seems to be a critique group poem, and I've done that a couple of times.

An example, the closing lines of "November 26" (which was probably Thanksgiving):

....................But
she felt part of the great extravaganza,
Thanksgiving, Christmas, the works--
in love on New Year's Eve,
by Valentine's Day brokenhearted--
while I stayed in my apartment
searching for words to describe
feelings that had already departed.

I also like the closing of the book, but will not spoil it.

[Jack Saideman]

free poetry picked up outside a cafe in bushwick, new york, read in a park in (old) york, england.

he wrote a poem daily. not all are included. and that’s okay.

[Diann Blakely]

An antiphony resulting from the conflict between high culture and popular art provides not only the subject matter but also the raison d’être of David Lehman’s highly entertaining and generously, wittily eclectic new collection. Lehman set himself a creative exercise: write a poem every day chronicling life in New York City, where, he says, ”every street corner seems to promise an adventure.“ THE DAILY MIRROR results from the best of Lehman’s efforts, which seem the love-children of Emily Dickinson and Frank O’Hara.

In addition to teaching, Lehman serves as general editor of the BEST AMERICAN POETRY anthologies. He belongs to the poetry ”establishment,“ but unlike many of its members, he doesn’t shun the influence of the slam/spoken-word movement. ”Maybe I’m more open-minded about slams,“ Lehman says, ”because I’ve gone to them.... Poetry belongs as much in bars and breweries as in classrooms and libraries“; moreover, he adds, ”a poetry event, such as a slam or a performance, can have an effect akin to that of a poetic form: It can stimulate inventiveness.“

That inventiveness is clear in THE DAILY MIRROR. Even as we read the poems on the page, we realize that they ”also ask to be spoken aloud,“ as their author puts the matter. These poems, he adds, ”are talky, they sometimes seem like conversations by other means, and I love reading them aloud, though my own performance style is understated.“

[Kasandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had so many glowing blurbs on the back (Billy Collins, Mark Strand, Carolyn Kizer, and more) that I should have known I'd be disappointed by it. Though there are sweet and smart poems here, it reads exactly as you'd expect a collection of 365/365 or Poem-a-Day poems would: mostly written in haste, lots of dream imagery or stream-of-consciousness talking/thinking sort of writing, not a lot worth re-reading or that are particularly memorable. I guess when you can drop famous names of poet friends, you get to publish work that (written by anyone else) would attract almost no notice whatsoever. For the record, I've known a great number of poets who have also done the 365/365 project (myself included), and though yes, you will generate a lot of crappy poems this way, you will also (guaranteed!) generate at least a few very good ones... unless you can't write at all. Most of the poets whose work I regularly read and who have done this project (365/365) have produced bodies of work that are more interesting and more enjoyable to read than this book was. If you are already a fan of Lehman's, you may like this, but as an introduction to his work, it doesn't encourage me to seek out more of him.

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, this collection was uneven: at times incomprehensible in the way that Proper Nouns Describing People Only The Author Knows are incomprehensible, at times because I found myself generally unmoved by the diction and meter and motion of the prose. But there were gems. Even two years later, I remember the poem January 1 and quote it often:

"Some people confuse inspiration with lightning / not me I know it comes from the lungs and air"

and -- I can't cut this short because it might be poetry's most elegant run-on sentence, capturing the breathless panic of the subject perfectly in the syntax:

"some people think you need to be pure of heart
not true it comes to the pure and impure alike
the patient and impatient the lovers the onanists
and the virgins you just need to be able to listen
and talk at the same time and you'll hear it like
the long-delayed revelation at the end of the novel
which turns out to be something simple a traumatic
moment that fascinated us more when it was only
a fragment an old song a strange noise a mistake
of hearing a phone that wouldn't stop ringing"

[Ace Boggess · Rating 5 out of 5]

2/27/22

I read the follow-up to this book, The Evening Sun, first, and it has been my favorite book of poems for twenty years now. When I found out about this one, I quickly went out to the local Borders (remember those?) to pick up a copy. Had I read this one first, it probably would be my favorite. They both have that same unique kinetic style of Lehman's daily poems that I love, capturing everyday life in side turns and tangents on music, art, philosophy. I've actually read this one more than The Evening Sun because I had both books sent to me in prison, but Sun suffered a horrible coffee-related death and left me with Mirror for a couple years. I read it often and still do. I gain something from it every time. Highly recommended.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pretty much completely unimpressed. There was one line in one poem that I really liked - and a few lines in other poems that I mildly liked. But overall, eh. I give this guy mad props for writing one poem per day - but I think I'm personally just not a fan of his style of poem-ry.

[Charles Ellenbogen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I learned that while Lehman is capable of great lines and phrases and occasionally a poem that made me stop and think, this book still seemed more like an exercise than an accomplishment and I long for some poems that have more form than his.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily 5 stars for me. In the hands of a lesser poet, the "poem-a-day" challenge would create a bunch of pointless poems about the "poem-a-day" challenge. These poems are full of life and definitely worth the read. I'll be keeping it on my shelf to re-read some time in the future.

[john steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

cutesy project, and he's a little bit of an Old Dude Poet, but it's still readable and endearing.

[Mari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the most brillant poems ever written. How could you not love poetry after reading these?

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

my mother loved his work. it was the time of the divorce. i am not sure why. but he was always around then.

[Andrew Sydlik]

Interested in seeing the products of his poem-a-day devotion.

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

:David Lehman began writing a poem a day in 1996…" IMO he'd be better off to stick with that plan.

[Len Edgerly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I studied with David Lehman, who is a terrifically funny and smart poet. These short poems, written one a day for a year, are accessible and skillfully crafted.