Category Archives: Poetry

Original poetry & commentary on poetry

The “White Man’s Burden” in Toons

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Richard Guzman

I had forgotten that Rudyard Kipling wrote his remarkably racist and smug poem to encourage Americans as they took over my homeland, the Philippines.  The “burden” white men take up is the burden of civilizing the world. “Take up the … Continue reading →

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Carlos Cumpian: Everyday Apocalypses

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Richard Guzman

Below listen to Carlos Cumpian read “When Jesus Walked,” one of two Cumpian poems I included in Smokestacks and Skyscrapers: An Anthology of Chicago Writing. One of the country’s finest Hispanic-Latino-American poets (a designation clumsy but inaccurate and made up … Continue reading →

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Sterling Plumpp: Survival Blues

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Richard Guzman

Born in rural Mississippi in 1940, Sterling Plumpp has for thirty years taught at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and produced a body of poetry giving him considerable claim to be one of the country’s most distinguished blues-jazz poets. Somber … Continue reading →

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