New England Review

  • Subscribe/Order
  • Back Issues
    • Vol. 43, No. 3 (2022)
    • Vol. 43, No. 2 (2022)
    • Vol. 43, No. 1 (2022)
    • Vol. 42, No. 4 (2021)
    • Vol. 42, No. 3 (2021)
    • Vol. 42, No. 2 (2021)
    • Vol. 42, No. 1 (2021)
    • Vol. 41 (2020)
      • Vol. 41, No. 4 (2020)
      • Vol. 41, No. 3 (2020)
      • Vol. 41, No. 2 (2020)
      • Black Lives Matter
      • Vol. 41, No.1 (2020)
    • Vol. 40 (2019)
      • Vol. 40, No. 4 (2019)
      • Vol. 40, No. 3 (2019)
      • Vol. 40, No. 2 (2019)
      • Vol. 40, No 1 (2019)
    • Vol. 39 (2018)
      • Vol. 39, No. 4 (2018)
      • Vol. 39, No. 3 (2018)
      • Vol. 39, No. 2 (2018)
      • Vol. 39, No. 1 (2018)
    • Vol. 38 (2017)
      • Vol. 38, No. 4 (2017)
      • Vol. 38, No. 3 (2017)
      • Vol.38, No. 2 (2017)
      • Vol. 38, No. 1 (2017)
    • Vol. 37 (2016)
      • Vol. 37, No. 4 (2016)
      • Vol. 37, No. 3 (2016)
      • Vol. 37, No. 2 (2016)
      • Vol. 37, No. 1 (2016)
    • Vol. 36 (2015)
      • Vol. 36, No. 4 (2015)
      • Vol. 36, No. 3 (2015)
      • Vol. 36, No. 2 (2015)
      • Vol. 36, No. 1 (2015)
    • Vol. 35 (2014-2015)
      • Vol. 35, No.1 (2014)
      • Vol. 35, No. 2 (2014)
      • Vol. 35, No. 3 (2014)
      • Vol. 35, No. 4 (2015)
    • Vol. 34 (2013-2014)
      • Vol. 34, No. 1 (2013)
      • Vol. 34, No. 2 (2013)
      • Vol. 34, Nos. 3-4 (2014)
    • Vol. 33 (2012-2013)
      • Vol. 33, No. 1 (2012)
      • Vol. 33, No. 2 (2012)
      • Vol. 33, No. 3 (2012)
      • Vol. 33, No. 4 (2013)
    • Vol. 32 (2011-2012)
      • Vol. 32, No. 1 (2011)
      • Vol. 32, No. 2 (2011)
      • Vol. 32, No. 3 (2011)
      • Vol. 32, No. 4 (2012)
    • Vol. 31 (2010)
      • Vol. 31, No. 1 (2010)
      • Vol. 31, No. 2 (2010)
      • Vol. 31, No. 3 (2010)
      • Vol. 31, No. 4 (2010-2011)
    • Vol. 30 (2009)
      • Vol. 30, No. 1 (2009)
      • Vol. 30, No. 2 (2009)
      • Vol. 30, No. 3 (2009)
      • Vol. 30, No. 4 (2009-2010)
    • Vol. 29 (2008)
      • Vol. 29, No. 1 (2008)
      • Vol. 29, No. 2 (2008)
      • Vol. 29, No. 3 (2008)
      • Vol. 29, No. 4 (2008)
    • Vol. 28 (2007)
      • Vol. 28, No. 1 (2007)
      • Vol. 28, No. 2 (2007)
      • Vol. 28, No. 3 (2007)
      • Vol. 28, No. 4 (2007)
    • Vol. 27 (2006)
      • Vol. 27, No. 1 (2006)
      • Vol. 27, No. 2 (2006)
      • Vol. 27, No. 3 (2006)
      • Vol. 27, No. 4 (2006)
    • Vol. 26 (2005)
      • Vol. 26, No. 1 (2005)
      • Vol. 26, No. 2 (2005)
      • Vol. 26, No. 3 (2005)
      • Vol. 26, No. 4 (2005)
    • Vol. 25 (2004)
      • Vol. 25, Nos. 1-2 (2004)
      • Vol. 25, No. 3 (2004)
      • Vol. 25, No. 4 (2004)
    • Vol. 24 (2003)
      • Vol. 24, No. 1 (2003)
      • Vol. 24, No. 2 (2003)
      • Vol. 24, No. 3 (2003)
      • Vol. 24, No. 4 (2004)
  • About
    • Masthead
    • NER Award Winners
    • Press
    • Award for Emerging Writers
    • Readers and Interns
    • Books by our authors
    • Contact
  • Audio
  • Events
  • Submit

Sydney Lea

NER Classics | Democracy and the Demotic

November 6, 2015

Between Jazz and the Blues, Dr. Ernest Williamson IIISydney Lea‘s nonfiction piece, “Democracy and the Demotic: Reflections on the ‘lingua franca et jocundissima’ in American Poetry,” appeared in NER 16.3 (1994).

The title of my remarks is high sounding enough, yet in fact I do little more here than muse about a tradition in American poetry that my friend Stanley Plumly describes as “speech barking back at song.” More poet than scholar myself, I offer a kind of reverie.

♦

In a journal entry for 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson, engaging in a reverie of his own, imagined himself “a professor of Rhetoric–teacher of the art of writing well to young men.” “I should use Dante for my textbook,” Emerson surmised: “Dante knew how to throw the weight of his body into each act, and is, like Byron, Burke, and Carlyle, the Rhetorician. I find him full of the nobil volgare eloquenza; that he knows ‘God damn,’ and can be rowdy if he please, and he does please.” What Dante could teach was that daily surroundings were “the very best basis for poetry, and the material which you must work up.”

[Read more]

Filed Under: NER Classics Tagged With: Democracy and the Demotic, Dr. Ernest Williamson III, NER Classics, Sydney Lea

VT Poet Laureate Sydney Lea to teach a class and read at RWC

November 13, 2013

leaVermont’s Poet Laureate, Sydney Lea, will be teaching a poetry class for 8-12 students at the Renegade Writers’ Collective on Sunday, November 24. This class is for committed writers and will take place in the RWC classroom in the Karma Bird House at 47 Maple Street in Burlington. The class is from 4-6 pm and will be followed by a reading of his work, Q&A, and book signing, which will take place in the first floor gallery in the same building. The reading will take place from 6-7pm, and is free and open to the public. You do not have to take the class to come to the reading. Click here for a full course description and to reserve your spot in the class.

Sydney Lea is a founding editor of New England Review, and his work has appeared in the magazine in recent years.

Filed Under: NER Community Tagged With: Renegade Writers' Collective, Sydney Lea

New Books from NER Authors: I Was Thinking of Beauty

June 10, 2013

lea450Sydney Lea, a founding Editor of NER, has published a new poetry collection. From Four Way Books: “It’s been said about conservationist and Vermont Poet Laureate Sydney Lea that ‘this extraordinary poet finds an elegance and beauty that can be glimpsed throughout his often harsh landscape.’ I Was Thinking of Beauty, his eleventh collection of poems, evidences that skill. In this collection, we follow a speaker who no longer feels he can ‘distinguish regret from knowledge, / accountability from sorrow,’ as he wades through the layers of memory and experience: ‘I was thinking of beauty then, how it’s faced grief since the day / that somebody named it.’ Lea’s keen narrative eye keeps us fully in the present as he reminisces on a past—which Lea unravels, chisels away at in search of a deeper understanding—so vivid it could be our own.”

Sydney Lea is the co-founder of New England Review and has appeared numerous times in NER, most recently in its current issue, 33.4.

I Was Thinking of Beauty is available at Four Way Books and other booksellers.

 

Filed Under: NER Authors' Books Tagged With: I Was Thinking of Beauty, Sydney Lea

New England Review in Boston

March 6, 2013

AWP logoMarch 6 through March 9

8:30 am. to 6 p.m.
AWP Book Fair
New England Review, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Bread Loaf School of English, New England Young Writers’ Conference, Middlebury College Program in Creative Writing: Tables C5-C7
(for AWP conference registrants; free to the public Saturday, March 9)

Friday, March 8: 9:00–10:15 a.m.
New England Review Celebrates Vermont Writers:
Kellam Ayres, Robert Cohen, Castle Freeman Jr., Sydney Lea, Cleopatra Mathis
Vermont is home to more writers per capita than any other state in the nation, and Vermont authors work in a wide variety of aesthetics and styles—some with no particular ties to place and others decidedly rooted. Founded in 1978, New England Review publishes authors from all over the world, but in this reading, we’re proud to present five outstanding writers who live and work in our home state, and whose writing has recently appeared in our pages.
Hynes Convention Center, Room 303
(for AWP conference registrants only)

Saturday, March 9, 3 p.m.
The Teaching Press: Literary Magazines and Learning. (Travis Kurowski, Jay Baron Nicorvo, Carolyn Kuebler, Ben George, Jodee Stanley) Editors from leading literary magazines New England Review, Ecotone, Ninth Letter, and Third Coast discuss the educational benefits of literary magazines on today’s campuses. Topics will include the teaching press, experiential learning environments, learning-based outcomes, and how campus literary magazines are changing 21st-century publishing.
(for AWP conference registrants only)
Hynes Convention Center, Room 313

Filed Under: Events, NER Community Tagged With: AWP, Castle Freeman Jr., Cleopatra Mathis, Kellam Ayres, Robert Cohen, Sydney Lea

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Next Page »


Vol. 43, No. 4

Subscribe

NER Digital

Tomas Venclova

Literature & Democracy

Tomas Venclova

“A principled stance against aggression should never turn into blind hatred. Such hatred does not help anyone to win . . .”

Sign up for our newsletter

Click here to join our list and receive occasional news and always-great writing.

categories

Navigation

  • Subscribe/Order
  • Support NER
  • About
  • Advertising
  • Audio
  • Back Issues
  • Emerging Writers Award
  • Events
  • Podcast

ner via email

Stories, poems, essays, and web features delivered to your Inbox.

Categories

Copyright © 2023 · facebook · twitter

 

Loading Comments...