Poetry - Latest Issue: John Milton and Michael Hartnett

Following on the recent mention of John Milton I'm pleased to see an article entitled Sing, God-awful Muse! On Milton and the Nipple Nazi of Northampton by American poet Daisy Fried. Fried explains the the Nazi reference in her title with reference to a day-long childbirth class in November 2006 inan overheated hospital conference room in Western Massachusetts. She mentions the perceived difficulty of Milton's work and the fact that Dennis Danielson, author of many books and articles on Milton, has published—as a way to deal
with the epic’s difficulty—Paradise Lost: Parallel Prose Edition, a “translation” into easy English without the line-breaks. The text of the poem is printed on the opposite pages.

She recounts her own finding of Paradise Lost: I realize I don’t read Paradise Lost in terms of questions of theology and morality, free will and predestination, but rather as a novel in verse. What does Satan want? How is he different from Adam? Who do we sympathize with?

Also in this issue as part of a feature entitled Poets We've Known Irish poet Conor O'Callaghan contributes an article entitled You're Not the Outlaw You Think You Are - Remembering Michael Hartnett. Hartnett lived the dream, or the nightmare it increasingly looked - according to O'Callaghan.

Michael Harnett's poetry books from Gallery Press.