Gowpen and Undertow
Poetry - “This isn’t a good look,”/I can only foretaste your reply, wind or blister/looking at me. Break glass in case of emergency./in each hand, precariously awaiting your reply. (11/1/2024)
Poetry - “This isn’t a good look,”/I can only foretaste your reply, wind or blister/looking at me. Break glass in case of emergency./in each hand, precariously awaiting your reply. (11/1/2024)The Dead Are Difficult: Jenny George’s “After Image”
Essay - “The tone of After Image is simultaneously calm and feverish, as the bereaved one moves along a spectrum from numb to utterly passionate, up and down, yet never hysterical, never heaping ashes on her head.” (10/27/2024)
Essay - “The tone of After Image is simultaneously calm and feverish, as the bereaved one moves along a spectrum from numb to utterly passionate, up and down, yet never hysterical, never heaping ashes on her head.” (10/27/2024)The Disappearing Sonnet
Poetry - “Cicadas, dirty oil, dogs, Venus, gloves/clouds, manholes, fled storms, black notes, harmonies/float indiscriminate as my head throbs/then disappear on the next wisp of breeze” (10/25/2024)
Poetry - “Cicadas, dirty oil, dogs, Venus, gloves/clouds, manholes, fled storms, black notes, harmonies/float indiscriminate as my head throbs/then disappear on the next wisp of breeze” (10/25/2024)The Lecher’s Lament Poetry - “Comfort me with ginseng—with sacraments/of a youthful wine-flushed god,/naked and beautiful, chanting a lecher’s lament.” (10/20/2024)
Poetry - “Comfort me with ginseng—with sacraments/of a youthful wine-flushed god,/naked and beautiful, chanting a lecher’s lament.” (10/20/2024)My Red Schwinn and Bird Shot
Poetry - “While others cycled to dusty fields,/sported bats and mitts, shouted to claim/their favorite positions, I was alone,/my red Schwinn and me—no/deception of ritual, no useless chatter,/no bad calls, no vicarious parents.” (10/18/2024)
Poetry - “While others cycled to dusty fields,/sported bats and mitts, shouted to claim/their favorite positions, I was alone,/my red Schwinn and me—no/deception of ritual, no useless chatter,/no bad calls, no vicarious parents.” (10/18/2024)Wrackable as Arguments: Anne-Marie Turza’s “Fugue with Bedbug”
Essay - “[Anne-Marie] Turza shows dramatic flair for summoning our attention, that of a town crier or carnival barker who was handed a surprise announcement at the last possible minute, and now must sell its premise before a skeptical gathered audience with all the bravado she can muster.” (10/13/2024)
Essay - “[Anne-Marie] Turza shows dramatic flair for summoning our attention, that of a town crier or carnival barker who was handed a surprise announcement at the last possible minute, and now must sell its premise before a skeptical gathered audience with all the bravado she can muster.” (10/13/2024)The Orthodox Church of Ukraine Reschedules Christmas and Judges 9:45
Poetry - “After supper,/God burps through his heartburn, eyes Gabriel/and—as expected—punishes: Two thousand years/hard labor for your antics, errand boy.” (10/11/2024)
Poetry - “After supper,/God burps through his heartburn, eyes Gabriel/and—as expected—punishes: Two thousand years/hard labor for your antics, errand boy.” (10/11/2024)Hair Clip and Dread Talk
Poetry - “and I send her sunflowers on a sunny day./and I think of her children./and I sing with the Wailers.” (10/4/2024)
Poetry - “and I send her sunflowers on a sunny day./and I think of her children./and I sing with the Wailers.” (10/4/2024)“No One Is Ever Really Just One Thing”: Laurel Nakanishi’s “Ashore” Essay - “What stands out in Nakanishi is that she possesses an acute awareness of the root poetic traditions of her native islands and brings them forward with respect while also being influenced, as she herself professes, by poets such as Californian Gary Snyder—whose verse, like hers, is thoroughly immersed in the natural world.” (9/29/2024)
Essay - “What stands out in Nakanishi is that she possesses an acute awareness of the root poetic traditions of her native islands and brings them forward with respect while also being influenced, as she herself professes, by poets such as Californian Gary Snyder—whose verse, like hers, is thoroughly immersed in the natural world.” (9/29/2024)Gods and Angels and Other Poems
Poetry - “The Sistine Chapel hived billions/of microbes, moss piglets/throbbing on God’s finger, frescoes flooded/with bacteria, angels fruiting cocci.” (9/27/2024)
Poetry - “The Sistine Chapel hived billions/of microbes, moss piglets/throbbing on God’s finger, frescoes flooded/with bacteria, angels fruiting cocci.” (9/27/2024)Étude: Perspective Photo Lyric Poetry - Beyond a life of seeing, saying, being, by sparest nudge or shimmer, I shall cease. I ask what for, the dying, what the living. I start recording. I collect and keep. (9/20/2024)
Poetry - Beyond a life of seeing, saying, being, by sparest nudge or shimmer, I shall cease. I ask what for, the dying, what the living. I start recording. I collect and keep. (9/20/2024)Scribe in Disguise: Amy Beeder’s “And So Wax Was Made and Also Honey”
Essay - “[Amy] Beeder’s nimble adaptiveness and ability to key her lexicon to a wily set of speakers and dramatic personae in And So Wax Was Made and Also Honey are what make this rare book command attention.” (9/15/2024)
Essay - “[Amy] Beeder’s nimble adaptiveness and ability to key her lexicon to a wily set of speakers and dramatic personae in And So Wax Was Made and Also Honey are what make this rare book command attention.” (9/15/2024)Old Men Coughing Poetry - “Coughing, ululating, barking, whooping./Can he cough out the memory of a lonely/girl waiting, wanting, watching, waiting?” (9/13/2024)
Poetry - “Coughing, ululating, barking, whooping./Can he cough out the memory of a lonely/girl waiting, wanting, watching, waiting?” (9/13/2024)Quan Yin
Poetry - “Wife of himself/she taught him how to be in this world/as all women teach. The woman in you/will teach you, man king,/how to be.” (9/6/2024)
Poetry - “Wife of himself/she taught him how to be in this world/as all women teach. The woman in you/will teach you, man king,/how to be.” (9/6/2024)Fierce Lyric in Karla Kelsey’s “Blood Feather”
Essay - “Blood Feather stages scenes of both unexpected victory and chronic defeat in the three featured lives, while allowing us to imagine an alternative history for these women, had they been listened to and given latitude to exercise their rightful prerogatives in the culture at large, rather than retreating into conventional expectations of femininity.” (9/1/2024)
Essay - “Blood Feather stages scenes of both unexpected victory and chronic defeat in the three featured lives, while allowing us to imagine an alternative history for these women, had they been listened to and given latitude to exercise their rightful prerogatives in the culture at large, rather than retreating into conventional expectations of femininity.” (9/1/2024)Shifting Patterns and The Rose
Poetry - “Ever human-centric/We self-aggrandized/Anthropomorphized/And now agonize.” (8/30/2024)
Poetry - “Ever human-centric/We self-aggrandized/Anthropomorphized/And now agonize.” (8/30/2024)