The Musical Innertube - Volume 2, Number 204 - Poetry for Dummies
Don and John speak with author John Timpane (in a dual role) about his new book, Poetry For Dummies. John also talks with poets Mark Danowsky, Lynn Levin and Ernest Hilbert about their contributions to the book and about the current state of poetry.
Get your copy of John's book by clicking here or here.
Want to see John talk poetry on Philadelphia TV? Check out this edition of "Philly Loves Poetry!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9rkfS8YPyM
John's latest poem is a sonnet. Read it here.
As mentioned, there is, in fact, a "cheat sheet" on the web that will enhance your enjoyment of the book. Here, dear friends, is the link to that "cheat sheet." Enjoy!
Lynn Levin is a poet and writer who teaches writing and literature at Drexel University and lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She is the author of nine books, most recently, her debut collection of short stories House Parties (2023). Widely published as a poet, Levin’s five poetry collections include The Minor Virtues (2020); Miss Plastique (2013), a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; Fair Creatures of an Hour (2009), a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; Imaginarium (2005), a finalist for Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award; and A Few Questions about Paradise (2000). She is co-author, with Valerie Fox, of Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (2019, 2013), a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in writing/publishing. She is the translator, from the Spanish, of Birds on the Kiswar Tree (2014), poems by the Peruvian Andean poet Odi Gonzales. Levin is also the producer/director of the 2017 video documentary Life on the Napo River: A Glimpse of the Ecuadoran Amazon, Its People, and Their Traditions.
Mark Danowsky is a Philadelphia–based poet, editor, and educator. Mark is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry. He is author of several short poetry collections including, Take Care (Moon Tide Press, 2025) and, most recently, Meatless (Plan B Press). His poems and other writing have been curated in many journals including Alba, The New Verse News, anti-heroin chic, Right Hand Pointing, The Broadkill Review, Gargoyle, Otoliths, and elsewhere. Mark's work often explores the subjective nature of reality, memory, and emotional states.
Ernest Hilbert is a poet, librettist, critic, and rare book dealer resident in Philadelphia. Hilbert’s poems have appeared in Yale Review, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Parnassus, Sewanee Review, Hudson Review, Boston Review, Verse, The New Criterion, Seneca Review, The New Republic, American Scholar, Oxonian Review, and the London Review, as well as several anthologies, including Best American Poetry (2018), the Swallow Anthology of New American Poets (2009), Two Weeks: A Digital Anthology of Contemporary Poetry (2011), The Incredible Sestina Anthology (2013), and two Penguin anthologies, Poetry: A Pocket Anthology and Literature: A Pocket Anthology (2011). Hilbert has written about books for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Literary Supplement, the Spectator, Fine Books & Collections, and The Hopkins Review.
His debut poetry collection Sixty Sonnets (2009) was described by X. J. Kennedy as “maybe the most arresting sequence we have had since John Berryman checked out of America.” His second collection, All of You on the Good Earth (2013), has been hailed as a “wonder of a book,” “original and essential,” an example of “sheer mastery of poetic form,” containing “some of the most elegant poems in American literature since the loss of Anthony Hecht.” His third collection, Caligulan (2015), has been called “brutal yet beautiful,” defined by “pleasure, clarity, and discipline,” “tough-minded and precise,” filled with a “stern, witty, and often poignant music,” “a page-turner in a way most poetry books can never be,” and “an ho… Read More
