Moon Bloom and Lithopedion
Poetry - “Night flower,/short-lived lover/of darkness,/offspring of cactus,/desert jewel/lulled awake/by moonbeams” (1/10/2025)
Poetry - “Night flower,/short-lived lover/of darkness,/offspring of cactus,/desert jewel/lulled awake/by moonbeams” (1/10/2025)God’s in the Weeds: Daneen Bergland’s “The Goodbye Kit”
Essay - “Eve about to be cast out of the Garden kills as the mistress of straight-faced understatement. There is no fury, no rebuke, or if there is, it has not set in yet. Instead, we get rationalizing, looking on the bright side, and philosophical self-doubt.” (1/5/2025)
Essay - “Eve about to be cast out of the Garden kills as the mistress of straight-faced understatement. There is no fury, no rebuke, or if there is, it has not set in yet. Instead, we get rationalizing, looking on the bright side, and philosophical self-doubt.” (1/5/2025)Down at the Ecoplex
Poetry - “Doom is there staring, everywhere/I go, like a brazen coyote/dead center of the road/half-starved so it doesn’t care anymore.” (1/3/2025)
Poetry - “Doom is there staring, everywhere/I go, like a brazen coyote/dead center of the road/half-starved so it doesn’t care anymore.” (1/3/2025)The Hand
Poetry - “The hand drops a fresh globe/into the scoured skull, secures breath upon/the hemispheric nostrils and stands back,/appraising…” (12/27/2024)
Poetry - “The hand drops a fresh globe/into the scoured skull, secures breath upon/the hemispheric nostrils and stands back,/appraising…” (12/27/2024)Sand, Ash, or Mud: Valerie Witte’s “A Rupture in the Interiors”
Essay - “As for most poets, [Valerie] Witte’s writing is intensely personal, whatever form it may take. No ‘experimental’ poet could be more candid and direct about her intention of ‘examining in a new way’ matters close to her heart.” (12/22/2024)
Essay - “As for most poets, [Valerie] Witte’s writing is intensely personal, whatever form it may take. No ‘experimental’ poet could be more candid and direct about her intention of ‘examining in a new way’ matters close to her heart.” (12/22/2024)Mannequin Exposé
Poetry - “Among a murder of mannequins/the guilty can’t be picked out of a lineup.” (12/20/2024)
Poetry - “Among a murder of mannequins/the guilty can’t be picked out of a lineup.” (12/20/2024)Skwentna, AK Poetry - “The woods sigh. And then, a thousand miles away,/I’m in your arms again. Your breathing is an ocean./I’m drifting away. You whisper.” (12/17/2024)
Poetry - “The woods sigh. And then, a thousand miles away,/I’m in your arms again. Your breathing is an ocean./I’m drifting away. You whisper.” (12/17/2024)For Your Penance Poetry - “There is a fervor that I do not surge with,/A saintliness with which I do not sing.” (12/13/2024)
Poetry - “There is a fervor that I do not surge with,/A saintliness with which I do not sing.” (12/13/2024)Little Engines of Self: Joy Manesiotis’ “Revoke” Essay - “It is a remarkable feat of poetics to create epic sense out of the most micro of human materials.” (12/8/2024)
Essay - “It is a remarkable feat of poetics to create epic sense out of the most micro of human materials.” (12/8/2024)Butter Weed Poetry - “Having just emerged from her tv and ac,/she was too sun-shocked and asphyxiating/to hear ‘it’s a lovely shoot’/as my spade severed the root.” (12/6/2024)
Poetry - “Having just emerged from her tv and ac,/she was too sun-shocked and asphyxiating/to hear ‘it’s a lovely shoot’/as my spade severed the root.” (12/6/2024)
Notes on Kitsch: Janice Harrington’s “Yard Show”
Essay - “As witness of this exaltation of the gaudy, the poet reclaims kitsch as a redemptive force, a vital stream of art, when it is mindfully connected to a set of local traditions, the heritage of a group that had to strive hard to find its native expression using the materials at hand.” (11/24/2024)
Essay - “As witness of this exaltation of the gaudy, the poet reclaims kitsch as a redemptive force, a vital stream of art, when it is mindfully connected to a set of local traditions, the heritage of a group that had to strive hard to find its native expression using the materials at hand.” (11/24/2024)Shadow Poetry - “her body, between the buildings/behind her and the parked cars/in front, throwing a coal-black shadow/on the ground the color/of tarnished silver…” (11/22/2024)
Poetry - “her body, between the buildings/behind her and the parked cars/in front, throwing a coal-black shadow/on the ground the color/of tarnished silver…” (11/22/2024)Ben Jonson’s Prison Conversion Poetry - “You had time to contemplate its masonry/and recall that other jail, the temple/of muscle and flesh built by your trade/of bricklayer, now turning wan and idle.” (11/15/2024)
Poetry - “You had time to contemplate its masonry/and recall that other jail, the temple/of muscle and flesh built by your trade/of bricklayer, now turning wan and idle.” (11/15/2024)How to Read Poetry
Essay - “If I have become something of an expert reader of poems, it is in part because long ago, I learned to linger on the surface of things, rather than push past their specifics in order to arrive quickly at instant profundity.” (11/10/2024)
Essay - “If I have become something of an expert reader of poems, it is in part because long ago, I learned to linger on the surface of things, rather than push past their specifics in order to arrive quickly at instant profundity.” (11/10/2024)Following Bishop, This Excess Our Sentience, and Amnesia Palace Poetry - “The far shore wore a gauzy veil of rain./Dark thunderheads rose over Evian/and shook the silver surface of the lake,/ruffling like shot silk.” (11/8/2024)
Poetry - “The far shore wore a gauzy veil of rain./Dark thunderheads rose over Evian/and shook the silver surface of the lake,/ruffling like shot silk.” (11/8/2024)