“Writers had better not be too cocksure that they’ve got inspiration on their side.”

Now is my turn to speak, if I
can claim it, tipping myself forward,
letting my tongue fall with a soft,
an inward, an almost inaudible click.

The haystack’s painting hangs in the Met;
the painting of the haystack, that is,
the one by Monet, not by van Gogh,

Discretion is the very soul of your pants pocket:
first, because your pocket hides whatever you put in it,

Catch! It’s a quarter, right? You got it? Good.
Now, pinch the flat between your first two fingers,
press hard against the milling with your thumb,

I wake up mornings snug in my bed-puppet.
Not the liveliest in my repertoire,
but wait, it gets better: next is my pants-puppet,

This is a city of bridges,
though the water has mostly fled;
a city of ambitious span

In the moment just before the music scares
the machinery whispers to itself inside
its mild, black box, until, with an indrawn breach,

Strings violin-taut at the knees and elbows,
his heavy head drawn back, the dreaming child
sleepwalks down the ancient basement stairs,

I am singing now of the splinter of wood
you got in your knee as a child and never
got out. Of the splinter that sank out of sight

In our eight-part series Life Sentence, the literary critic Jeff Dolven takes apart and puts back together one beloved or bedeviling sentence. The artist Tom Toro illustrates each sentence Dolven chooses.  There are so many ways to pin a sentence …

In our eight-part series Life Sentence, the literary critic Jeff Dolven takes apart and puts back together one beloved or bedeviling sentence. The artist Tom Toro illustrates each sentence Dolven chooses.The question: Are you ill? The answer: Kings …

In our eight-part series Life Sentence, the literary critic Jeff Dolven takes apart and puts back together one beloved or bedeviling sentence. The artist Tom Toro illustrates each sentence Dolven chooses.W. H. Auden was a compulsive aphorist. His poe…

In our eight-part series Life Sentence, the literary critic Jeff Dolven takes apart and puts back together one beloved or bedeviling sentence. The artist Tom Toro illustrates each sentence Dolven chooses.The first thing I want to do is give you the s…

In our eight-part series Life Sentence, the literary critic Jeff Dolven takes apart and puts back together one beloved or bedeviling sentence each week. Artist Tom Toro illustrates each sentence Dolven chooses.Americans are particularly bad at lying,…

In our eight-part series, Life Sentence, the literary critic Jeff Dolven takes apart and puts back together one beloved or bedeviling sentence each week. Artist Tom Toro illustrates each sentence Dolven chooses.   How do you read a sentence by Ger…

In our new eight-part series, Life Sentence, the literary critic Jeff Dolven will take apart and put back together one beloved or bedeviling sentence every week. Tom Toro will illustrate each sentence Dolven chooses. Read earlier installments of…

In our new eight-part series, Life Sentence, the literary critic Jeff Dolven will take apart and put back together one beloved or bedeviling sentence every week. Tom Toro will illustrate each sentence Dolven chooses.   What is a sentence? But that…