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.” 10/13/2024The 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.” 10/11/2024Hair 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.” 9/29/2024Gods 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.” 9/27/2024Étude: 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. 9/20/2024Scribe 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.” 9/15/2024Old 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?” 9/13/2024Quan 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.” 9/6/2024Fierce 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.” 9/1/2024Shifting 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.” 8/30/2024Ekphrasis and Eugene Datta’s “Water and Wave” 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
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.” 8/18/2024Paying For Pleasure
Poetry - “The old man had paid dearly/he could still get lost in dreams” 8/16/2024
Poetry - “The old man had paid dearly/he could still get lost in dreams” 8/16/2024Homelands 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
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.” 8/16/2024Villanelle on a Theme from Rimbaud and Other Poems
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
Poetry - “He feels himself watched/as he counts accents./He knows the painter’s/watching for the precise moment/when his blue ink freezes.” 8/9/2024How To Write Lyric Poetry 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
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