Imagine Again
Imagine a de-militarized Middle East and then imagine a completely de-militarized world. It’s not so easy these days, but please try. –Eliot Katz, October 2023
Let Go the Heavy Flags of Hatred
Hamas has taken Israel by surprise and undertaken immoral, large-scale terror attacks from Gaza, breaking national gates, sending hundreds of deadly missiles into populated towns, riding rifled motorcycles and flying machete gliders, brutally murdering more than 900 innocents, including at …
Dear Kamala Harris
Dear Kamala Harris, congrats on being chosen to be the VP on the 2020 Democratic Party ticket. I made my first small donation to the Biden-Harris campaign this evening, partly because your initial email announcement highlighted Donald Trump as a …
Will Trump’s Wall Perform Magic Tricks?
Trump says a wall of concrete or steel slats has to be builtalong the U.S.-Mexico border for national security,so I am wondering what magic tricks it would perform:Could the wall tell that I have picked a jack of clubs …
Cable TV’s Ukraine War Analysts
I wonder if it would be possible for CNN and MSNBC to find more U.S. anti-war analysts opposed to Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of the sovereign country of Ukraine who were not also generals, intelligence agents, or congress-persons that …
Tribute to David McReynolds
With the death of David McReynolds after a fall in his apartment at age 88, the country lost one of its kindest, most dedicated, and most principled and passionate advocates for peace and social justice. I was friends with David …
One Small Reason the President’s Border Wall and Muslim Ban Are Wrong
With crazy policies on weaponization and environmental regulation, Trump is clearly a greater threat to the planet than the people he is trying to keep out. Eliot Katz 2/17
The Donald Has Never Learned How to Deal with No
As a longtime CEO and TV reality star boss with the infamous tagline “you’re fired,” the Donald has not had much experience being told no. Trump hates losing in court and is already determined to flip the …
The Donald Has Never Learned How to Deal with No Read more »
NY Times Letter to the Editor criticizing Trump’s proposed budget
For link to the New York Times letters page, published in the hard copy edition of the paper on 3/18/17 and posted in the NYT online edition on 3/17/17, see: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/opinion/proposed-cuts-in-the-trump-budget.html To the Editor: Sean Spicer, the president’s press secretary, …
NY Times Letter to the Editor criticizing Trump’s proposed budget Read more »
Rain Taxi review of “The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg”
”Katz’s analysis is readable and enjoyable while offering a scholarly view of Ginsberg’s most influential poems, including “Howl”…. Katz is able to explicate the originality with which Ginsberg converted his political views into poetry, making them resonate powerfully to his audiences…. A lively read regarding the poet …
Rain Taxi review of “The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg” Read more »
Kurt Hemmer on “The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg”
“The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg is the most engaging and rigorous analysis of Ginsberg’s political poetry yet attempted. We find in these pages the astuteness of a literary critic, the contextualization of a social historian, the knowledge of …
Kurt Hemmer on “The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg” Read more »
Bill Morgan on “The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg”
“The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg is an inspired work about one very-celebrated poet and political activist by another remarkable poet and activist, Eliot Katz. It is a serious work about the politics and social commitment behind much of …
Bill Morgan on “The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg” Read more »
Dinosaur Love
On the Museum of Natural History’s 4th floor I greeted my old friend: “Hey, T. Rex! Long time, no see!” My buddy flashed his killer teeth: “Over two years, E. Katz, I missed you.” Surprised, I asked, “You missed me? …
To The Vegetable Aisle
Under refrigerated water spray all looks healthy, romaine, red & green, boston bib, watercress— how choose a lettuce? How to know which of you has natural soil’s nutrients intact? Hey arrugula! Why haven’t I seen you …
Adrienne Rich on “Unlocking the Exits”
“Eliot Katz’s poems are wonderful in their celebration of life and rhythmic verbal exuberance, set against the atrocities of now” –Adrienne Rich
Howard Zinn on “Love, War, Fire, Wind”
“I love these poems, which are full of passion and thought. Eliot Katz is among a handful of contemporary American poets whose work speaks to me.” –Howard Zinn
These Beautiful Territories
The cloud outside the window is shaped like an angel The gods have forgotten to say goodbye to these beautiful territories It’s impossible to keep shoes unmuddy along these trails Danny was right, I should have brought a pair of …
The View from the Big Woods
By Eliot Katz About a week before leaving for a 12-day summer vacation, I sent The New York Times a Letter to the Editor, which they published on June 20, 2006. In my letter, I addressed an op-ed column by …
Alicia Ostriker on “Love, War, Fire, Wind”
“One of the amazing facts about Eliot Katz as a poet is that you can just never predict what he will do next. His sparkling mind, his acute political savvy, his comedy and his all-embracing warmth are always there. He …
William Heyen on “Love, War, Fire, Wind”
“Eliot Katz, spiritual son of Whitman & Ginsberg, is a poet of hypnotic velocity, of anger that has risen to aria, of a comic (& sometimes elegiac) high seriousness. His is Walt’s ‘primal sanity’ that in this faithful & furious …
Abbie Hoffman: American Dissident and Political Organizer Extraordinaire
Abbie Hoffman: American Dissident and Political Organizer Extraordinaire By Eliot Katz One of the most well-known and influential American activists of the 20th century, Abbie Hoffman liked to call himself an American dissident and community organizer. As historian Howard Zinn …
Abbie Hoffman: American Dissident and Political Organizer Extraordinaire Read more »
Who Knew One Could Even Try Such a Thing?
New Brunswick, New Jersey in the 1980s was a pretty good microcosm of America. It was a multi-ethnic city with pockets of both wealth and poverty. It hosted the state’s major public university, Rutgers. It was the hometown of the …
Oklahoma City
I wonder where a Gulf War vet might get the ridiculous idea that you can solve all yr problems w/ bombs
Andy Clausen and the Poetry of Reconstruction
Introduction to Andy Clausen’s Home of the Blues: More Selected Poems By Eliot Katz The first time that I saw Andy Clausen read poetry was in the summer of 1980, at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Andy was scheduled …
A Hair from the Fixer that Bit Him
Donald Trump demands loyalty from all those strolling around his wandering hands, but he gives out loyalty to no one except his daughter, Ivanka, his gold-striped leather wallet and extra-long silk necktie, and the right half of one of his …
Liner Notes for Tom Pacheco’s CD, “13 Stones”
To paraphrase the radical pamphleteer and world citizen, Tom Paine, we are living in times that try people’s souls. Under the disastrous administration of George W. Bush and a corrupt conservative Congress, we find ourselves in the midst of an …
Preface to “The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg”
(Book Published by Beatdom Books, 2016) By Eliot Katz In both his poetry and his life, Allen Ginsberg was one of the most politically engaged writers of his era. Influenced by such key literary predecessors as William Blake and Walt …
Preface to “The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg” Read more »
Eight Techniques for Creating Memorable Poems: An Excerpt from The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg
Eight Techniques for Creating Memorable Political Poems: An Excerpt from Eliot Katz’s The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg (Beatdom Books, 2016) In any library with a decent-sized poetry collection, one can find plenty of books that look at the …
Amiri Baraka’s Introduction to Space and Other Poems
A New Wave Rushes Toward Us Eliot Katz’s Space, his second book, ought to make him instantly famous, it is that good. But even if it does not make his name formidable today, there is no doubt that it will …
Amiri Baraka’s Introduction to Space and Other Poems Read more »
Allen Ginsberg’s Introduction to Space and Other Poems
I’ve known Eliot Katz for about ten years, and I’ve seen his poetry grow. In style and substance, he follows in the Whitmanic democratic tradition. Beyond that, he’s developed a unique blend of literary influences: Romantics, Dickinson, Williams, surrealists, Brecht, …
Allen Ginsberg’s Introduction to Space and Other Poems Read more »
What I Think Historians Will Say in 20 Years about the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
I. September 2016 How crazy it was that America’s elders nominated the two most unpopular major-party candidates in U.S. history. On the Democratic side, a corporate-lensed centrist wife of a former president in a country founded on revolt against idea …
What I Think Historians Will Say in 20 Years about the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Read more »
After Seeing Bernie Sanders Win the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary
After nine difficult health years dealing with Lyme disease and neck surgery, I lived long enough to see the first democratic-socialist in my lifetime win a major political party’s presidential primary. What a night it is to …
After Seeing Bernie Sanders Win the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary Read more »