Tom Sexton

I began these posts by mentioning that I could see Campobello Island, New Brunswick where Franklin Delano Roosevelt had his summer home across a narrow channel of water, Eastern Passage, from Eastport, Maine where I’m spending the winter while I finish a collection of poems about growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts. The only thing the […]

I suppose pay attention to detail and know what you’re writing about is not the advice most poets are looking for, so I’ll finish with a discussion of influences. I mentioned in an earlier post that after I wrote “earth’s inviting bend toward Asia” in “Poolshark,” I sensed it was pointing me in a direction

Since I’m talking about poetry and place, I need to define what place means to me. I’m wedded to the particulars of where I live. Denali not a mountain. Cook Inlet not an inlet. I want to know every detail I can about Alaska. This seems rather obvious and not in the least profound; however,

I’m spending the winter in a small town in Maine less than a mile from Campobello Island, New Brunswick. Being away from Alaska has me thinking about how place can influence a poet or at least how place influences me as a poet. Excuse me if my posts seem overly self-interested, but I believe the