“The Muse and the Auctioneer’s Gavel: Learning About Poetry from First Editions” by Ernest Hilbert
The editors at Plume magazine in Canada asked me to supply a short piece on first editions of famous works of poetry for their Essays and Comment section. … Read More
“Two Portraits” by Ernest Hilbert in the Southwest Review
My poem "Two Portraits" appears in the new issue of the Southwest Review alongside poems by Denise Duhamel, A.M. Juster, Mary Jo Salter, Gerard Malanga, and others.… Read More
Books Read or Reread by Ernest Hilbert in 2016
One thing I’ve learned about fatherhood is that the number of books one will have time to read in a given year plummets precipitously. Nonetheless, I managed a few. George Saintsbury,… Read More
“An honest volume for dishonest times”: Caligulan as Not-Half-Bad Christmas Present
I'd be remiss if I didn't make at least a small seasonal push for my latest book Caligulan.… Read More
Ernest Hilbert Reviews Donald Hall’s Selected Poems in the Hopkins Review
"To write something as good as the poems that originally brought you to love the art. It’s the only sensible reason for writing poems,” Donald Hall declared in his early sixties in… Read More
“Neighborhood Watch” by Dora Malech
Dora Malech is the author of Say So (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011) and Shore Ordered Ocean (Waywiser Press, 2009). Her poems appear in publications that include The New Yorker, Poetry,… Read More
Ernest Hilbert with Dawn Manning and Luke Stromberg at the Pen and Pencil Club
Since the birth of our son Ian in December, I haven't managed to get out to do very many readings. In fact, I've only managed two, the Hoboken Historical Museum and Colorado… Read More
“Dream Song 256” by John Berryman
"With The Dream Songs, published in 1969, the supposed continental divide between the Beats on the West Coast and the academic poets on the East closed. Like Whitman in 'Song of Myself,'… Read More
“The Future” by Leonard Cohen (1934 – 2016)
“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” - Leonard Cohen… Read More
“Be Angry At The Sun” by Robinson Jeffers
"Of all the poets of his generation, [Robinson Jeffers] made our relation to this earth and sea and sky and wheeling seasons and the evolutionary processes that made trees and salmon… Read More
“Canoeing” and “Georgic” by Dara Mandle
Dara Mandle earned her BA in English from Yale, where she was awarded the Clapp Poetry Prize, and her MFA in poetry from Columbia. Her poems have appeared in Brooklyn Review, Painted… Read More
“Series of Dreams” by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” The U.S. presidential election has inspired an extra amount of… Read More
From the Vault! Ernest Hilbert’s Introduction to Classic Tales of Horror, Issued in the Canterbury Classics Series
Ernest Hilbert provides a comprehensive introduction to this new popular edition of the classic horror stories, spanning the century between Polydori’s groundbreaking 1819 short novel Vampyre and early twentieth-century classics by H.P.… Read More
“Poem Begun on the Autumn Equinox” by Ernest Hilbert
"The American lyric rendered in these poems follows Coleridge’s description of the sonnet as 'adapted to the state of a man violently agitated by a real passion.' Hilbert’s passion here is… Read More
“The Evil One” by Håkan Sandell, Translated from the Swedish by Bill Coyle
Bill Coyle's poems and translations have appeared in journals including the Hudson Review, PN Review and Poetry. His first book of poetry, The God of This World to His Prophet, won the… Read More
“The Green Man” by Jim Harrison
”Mr. Harrison’s novels and poems over the last two decades have been increasingly preoccupied with mortality, never so much as in Dead Man’s Float, his very good new book of verse. Here… Read More
Susan Spear’s Opera The Price of Pomegranates, Now with Video!
Poet and librettist Susan Spear studied with me in 2012, when I began teaching a course on the practical art of the opera libretto for the Western MFA poetry concentration. She began… Read More
Bethany Brings Us Another 25 of the Most Interesting Wikipedia Entries
Banned racist cartoons, Nazi sex dolls, the "Man of the Hole," Ego Depletion, the Dunning-Kruger Effect, massacres you've never heard of, and so much more!… Read More
Ernest Hilbert Bowdlerized at Long Last!
Until now, my poems have appeared whole or in parts, but not intentionally altered. At last, I am proud to have been slightly bowdlerized! … Read More
The Tiny Viking Drinking Horn of Ernest Hilbert the Rooster!
As noted here in years past, there is, in fact, a venerable warlord rooster named Ernest Hilbert, who keeps watch over his realm and his harem in Massachusetts. He was named for… Read More
“My Father’s Dante” by Ernest Hilbert
"Ernest Hilbert is known for the sonnet, and rightfully so. In Caligulan, he doesn’t so much break free of that but makes it clear that whatever he does, whether with subject, verse… Read More
“Dog Days (Caniculares Dies)” by Ernest Hilbert
In his debut collection, Sixty Sonnets, Hilbert establishes a variation on the sonnet form, employing an intricate rhyme scheme and varied line length. A skillful practitioner of form and nuance, Hilbert shifts… Read More
“Light Illumined” by Ernest Hilbert
"As anti-pastoral as Hilbert can be, he shares Robert Frost’s commitment to describing impressions as precisely as possible, which may offer, as it did Robert Frost, a 'momentary stay against confusion,' even… Read More
Caligulan Lands in London and London Takes a Bite Out of It
Through the kind ministrations of noted bookseller and celebrated poet John Clegg, the London Review Bookshop (LRB) in London is now plentifully stocked with copies of my latest venture, Caligulan. … Read More
“Kite” by Ernest Hilbert Scored for Voice and Cello by Christopher LaRosa
Follow along with the score as you listen to Chris LaRosa's setting of my poem "Kite" for voice and cello, featured on ContemporaryCompositionXX's youtube channel, performed by Rachel Mikol and Will Rowe,… Read More
“Summer Scream” by Ernest Hilbert in the New Issue of Per Contra
My light-hearted summer "horror" poem "Summer Scream" appears in the new issue of Per Contra, an international journal of the arts, literature, and ideas.… Read More
Images of The Book Collector, a New Opera by Composer Stella Sung and Librettist Ernest Hilbert
Until now, I've only been able to share images taken on cell phones and smaller cameras, which you may have seen here. I've finally received some of the professional photographs taken of… Read More
“From the Balcony on Heavy Metal Tribute Night at the Trocadero” by Ernest Hilbert
"Per Contra began publication as an online quarterly in the fall of 2005. Our name indicates our intention to offer more than one way of looking at the world. You can… Read More
Ernest Hilbert and Stella Sung’s New Opera, The Book Collector, to Premiere Friday, May 20th
My second opera with composer Stella Sung, The Book Collector, will be performed by the Dayton Opera on Friday, May 20th, with a matinee on Sunday May 22nd. The opera incorporates physical… Read More
Making a Modern Opera: Behind the Scenes of the Adaptation of The Scarlet Letter by Composer Lori Laitman and Librettist Dave Mason
"Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is America’s first great tragic novel. Published in 1850, the work immediately caught the country’s attention and has never lost its grip. The story could easily be… Read More