I’ll quit smoking
as soon as I
get lung cancer.

You haven’t texted
since Saturday,
when I read Keith Waldrop’s

I didn’t mean to quit drinking, 
it just sort of happened. 
I’d always assumed 

Michael Robbins examines the strange, uneven, fascinating poetry of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.

  I remember the songs that taught me the human voice is the most powerful instrument on earth. Some are immortal—Billie Holiday’s “I Must Have That Man,” Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” the Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” Pr…