Ekphrasis and Eugene Datta’s “Water and Wave” Johnny Payne Essay - “Once the speaker’s psyche and voice are introduced via questions, the photo in a sense begins to dissolve, becoming secondary, important, vital in its own right, but not ultimately defining. Thus the fecund faithlessness of poetry.” 8/18/2024
Paying For Pleasure Ray Greenblatt Poetry - “The old man had paid dearly/he could still get lost in dreams” 8/16/2024
Homelands Glenis Moore Poetry - “The bright green of summer wheat/with the brown of the ducks that stalk the fair/dykes where the raft spiders search for things to eat.” 8/16/2024
Villanelle on a Theme from Rimbaud and Other Poems Mark J. Mitchell Poetry - “He feels himself watched/as he counts accents./He knows the painter’s/watching for the precise moment/when his blue ink freezes.” 8/9/2024
How To Write Lyric Poetry Johnny Payne Essay - “This lyre-derived heritage survives robustly in the lyrics of pop songs, guitars now taking the place of the lyre and the orality of the human voice singing taking precedence over all.” 8/4/2024
Arteries & Veins Tytti Heikkinen Poetry - “In oncoming lights, my veins are dirty strings.” 8/2/2024
After Emily Dickinson, “Circumference thou Bride of Awe” Norman Finkelstein Poetry - “Every night/A lover be” 7/26/2024
Midnight Sutra Johnny Payne Poetry - “In yellow night, the day refuses to give ground/and I prepare to wait out its siege. Soon you’ll/arrive, and together we’ll chant the Midnight/Sutra” 7/22/2024
A Different Kind of Knowledge: Matthew Zapruder’s “I Love Hearing Your Dreams” Johnny Payne Essay - “The combination of dread and cheer these reveries bring about could accurately be called the optimist’s nightmare. The poet-speaker holds compassion as the stalk of a dandelion holds juice, hidden yet keeping the flower active and aloft through sheer tensile strength.” 7/21/2024
Salamander Briana Meade Poetry - “Held in palm,/a bloom of peony to/inspect.” 7/19/2024
You Hesitate, You Die Shannon Frost Greenstein Poetry - “A metaphysical compass, a refrain, an unyielding ethos in which to believe,/no longer reserved for near misses with the vehicular minions of the MTA,/I have come to regard existence as nothing more/than this pull between hesitation and action” 7/12/2024
Poems Without a Passport: Solmaz Sharif’s “Customs” Johnny Payne Essay - “Sharif’s style throughout Customs is neither bland nor baroque. It has the directness of what one overhears while waiting in line to cross on foot an international border or passing through immigration at an airport. It is a stylization of how people talk in such circumstances.” 7/7/2024
Duncan Farm Hank Lazer Poetry - “to my dog/Nate/as he is finishing/a seizure/i repeat/i am with you” 7/5/2024
Cicada Season JoAnna Novak Poetry - “Wire/protects the beech/from bladed lovers/initial-besotted for years,/each letter a small death.” 6/28/2024
Syllabic Fits of Speech: Cedar Sigos’ “All This Time” Johnny Payne Essay - “Sigo is a poet of utter seriousness, one who feels strongly about justice, the revindication of Native American identity, the calling out of cruelty and neglect, and many other pressing social matters. But he comes at the task with a meditative indirection, insisting on approaching these realities in a considered and careful manner.” 6/23/2024
AquaDom Jane Blanchard Poetry - “Soon first responders make a grim/assessment of the odd catastrophe.” 6/21/2024