A Once Unnecessary Reminder: Criticism Produces Good Works![]()
Criticism - “My own song ‘Alabama’ richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don’t like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending…” 3/27/2023
Criticism - “My own song ‘Alabama’ richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don’t like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending…” 3/27/2023The Tide![]()
Poetry - “‘Where now security, what to trust?’/The cycle of an invisible moon has/Our harbor in its force, another period/Has begun: the existing limits to be tested.” 2/19/2023
Poetry - “‘Where now security, what to trust?’/The cycle of an invisible moon has/Our harbor in its force, another period/Has begun: the existing limits to be tested.” 2/19/2023Love Makings![]()
Poetry - “Yet there is no one thing, no attribute/Of yours that I can fix on, nothing/I can abstract, describe, isolate…” 2/7/2023
Poetry - “Yet there is no one thing, no attribute/Of yours that I can fix on, nothing/I can abstract, describe, isolate…” 2/7/2023Abortion and the Mythic Mother![]()
Personal Essay - “They do not realize good mothering comes from fearlessness. Few things promote more fear than being deprived of control of one’s own body.” 12/5/2022
Personal Essay - “They do not realize good mothering comes from fearlessness. Few things promote more fear than being deprived of control of one’s own body.” 12/5/2022Five Poems of Neighborhood ![]()
Poetry - “‘What have you got there?’ ‘It’s snapper.’/“Did you catch it?’ ‘No, my dad caught it—/He says to watch out for any tiny bones.'” 12/2/2022
Poetry - “‘What have you got there?’ ‘It’s snapper.’/“Did you catch it?’ ‘No, my dad caught it—/He says to watch out for any tiny bones.'” 12/2/2022Fetterman v. Oz (And a Love Letter to a Conflicted Pennsylvania)![]()
Personal Essay - “Not everything stays the same, and, in many cases, it probably should not.” 11/1/2022
Personal Essay - “Not everything stays the same, and, in many cases, it probably should not.” 11/1/2022George Psalmanazar and the Extreme Art of Imposture![]()
Personal Essay - “Many of us also like impostors because, deep down, we understand that to exist only matter-of-factly, without fiction, would be intolerable.” 10/31/2022
Personal Essay - “Many of us also like impostors because, deep down, we understand that to exist only matter-of-factly, without fiction, would be intolerable.” 10/31/2022Review: James I. Porter’s “Homer: The Very Idea”![]()
Criticism - “But the price of that fame and quasi-divine status took its toll. ‘Immortality had its costs,’ Porter writes, ‘and Homer paid for it dearly.'” 10/24/2022
Criticism - “But the price of that fame and quasi-divine status took its toll. ‘Immortality had its costs,’ Porter writes, ‘and Homer paid for it dearly.'” 10/24/2022
Dimorphism![]()
Poetry - “And that we might as well stop killing one another,/because everyone who lived during the French Revolution is dead anyways.” 10/1/2022
Poetry - “And that we might as well stop killing one another,/because everyone who lived during the French Revolution is dead anyways.” 10/1/2022As the Leaves Begin to Change![]()
Poetry - “In that waltz, you find me now/Singing, dancing, with the moon” 9/25/2022
Poetry - “In that waltz, you find me now/Singing, dancing, with the moon” 9/25/2022Youth![]()
Poetry - “and Pastor speaks with God, while I/repent my youth that/like the flower which fades/has been my secret, golden calf.” 9/10/2022
Poetry - “and Pastor speaks with God, while I/repent my youth that/like the flower which fades/has been my secret, golden calf.” 9/10/2022Fly Fishing![]()
Poetry - “What does it bring to light?/What meaning is there to land?/Have you killed a bit of me? I doubt it.” 9/6/2022
Poetry - “What does it bring to light?/What meaning is there to land?/Have you killed a bit of me? I doubt it.” 9/6/2022Moving Clockwise around Easton County![]()
Fiction - “They’ve always been rivals with a town across the county line, a town of insulation and roofing makers. It’s a working-class rivalry, the authentic kind, one that lasts whatever color the collars become.” 9/5/2022
Fiction - “They’ve always been rivals with a town across the county line, a town of insulation and roofing makers. It’s a working-class rivalry, the authentic kind, one that lasts whatever color the collars become.” 9/5/2022Review: Philip Freeman’s “Hannibal”![]()
Criticism - “Freeman’s book, as the author acknowledges, is written as something of a eulogy to this great man of antiquity, who has captured imaginations for two millennia.” 9/4/2022
Criticism - “Freeman’s book, as the author acknowledges, is written as something of a eulogy to this great man of antiquity, who has captured imaginations for two millennia.” 9/4/2022
