Dana’s Reviews > The Lights: Poems > Status Update

i mentioned how this book made me believe in poetry again and moira donegan wrote it down

one thing this book also teaches me is a definition of a collection beyond ‘project’— which would normally be seen as a flaw; the poet’s repetitive use of similar words or themes across discrete poems; but that’s what makes a book rather than a group of individually screenshottable works for IG

it is important to bear witness to brilliance .. and to see structure in genius even if it is not one that a reader is able to climb. but just a kind of faith in the structure of brilliance and to be able to let it wash over you. this book reminds me why i think poetry is the same thing as theory, actually

i am trying to catalog what kind of refusals matter. artistic silence a la danez smith pre-BLUFF and the NYT poetry editor re:Gaza .. or whether refusal is one performance among many. i think ben lerner does make a compelling case for theory via poetic form, which has always been my aim… the treatise on the speech act… i am too afraid to tell Dan i have quit, and he loves ben lerner