This was Then, That was Now: An Interview with poet Vijay Seshadri
As editor of Green Mountains Review, I would like to extend deep gratitude to Vijay Seshadri for speaking with us about his new book This Was Now, That Was Then (Graywolf, 2020). Seshadri won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection 3 Sections in 2014. Currently, he is Poetry Editor at The Paris Review and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. He is also the editor of The Essential T.S. Eliot.
— E. Powell, May 13, 2021
The Social Virtues Series
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The Social Distance Reading Series
The Social Distance Reading Series
Brought to you by The Vermont School and Green Mountains Review
We’re thrilled to host The Social Distance Reading Series, a collaboration between Green Mountains Review and The Vermont School poets. In the wake of book event cancellations due to COVID-19, this pop-up series is designed to offer poets a platform for launching new collections of poems. At this point, we are focusing on collections by poets whose book events have been cancelled between January through May 2020.
Stay tuned for a new reading each Wednesday and Sunday.
Thanks,
–Didi Jackson, Major Jackson, Kerrin McCadden, and Elizabeth Powell, series curators.
Two Poems
What is metaled, what is stretched taut enough?
What’s said –an albatross “happens”– back-lit by white and golden flurries of clouds.
Two Poems
Singing when you’re not supposed to is only brave
into a rifle. Not in a hippie basement with a red toggle
Two Poems
Driving Past Our Marriage House
I’m glad you can’t see how close the wisteria
is creeping under the sill of our old second story
bedroom window—you’d been so vigilant
Men to Whom I No Longer Speak
I saw The Philadelphia Story for the first time on a Saturday in midsummer. A friend had recommended it to me, had described his favorite scene from the film in terms I may have misinterpreted.
Boathouse in Autumn Rain
As the punctuated surface reflects the world she breathes,
her glance flitting from stippled lake to scribbled page,
all day the writer inside writes to the same hypnotic air—
The Extra Key
appeared from nowhere beside the others,
wrought iron, thick as a quarter.
Seven numbers engraved on its head, some inscrutable.
In the Eighties
In the eighties I failed to learn fractions. I was frequently lonely. I stood in right field and wore a baseball glove on my head.
The Rise and Fall of Many Things
Frank found Mason striding back and forth across the sidewalk, likely to keep warm.
Lesbian Child
In the woods behind the house
I built a tiny city from sticks
and rolled matchbox cars down