Laurence Lieberman‘s recent books include Flight from the Mother Stone (University of Arkansas Press, 2000), The Regatta in the Skies: Selected Long Poems (University of Georgia Press, 1999), Compass of the Dying (University of Arkansas Press, 1998) and Beyond the Muse of Memory: Essays on Contemporary American Poets (University of Missouri Press, 1995).
Poetry
Sept/Oct 2018
Welshman and Muscovite
On his first hearing Dylan Thomas at the Y, poetry seemed to be soaring into an Empyrean of the airwaves, as if a realm beyond human senses had shifted— […]
Interview
Sept/Oct 2018
Below the Real World
Introduction Over thirty years ago I was introduced to Laurence Lieberman via his poem “The Coral Reef ” in a contemporary American literature class. Even if you’ve never been […]
Poetry
Spring 2003
Crush into These Blakk Feet
After the painting Altar for Jean-Michel Basquiat by Ras Akyem, 1995. 1. Soaring at heart, dream kin they may be—Akyem and Basquiat— though the pair never met: Ras Akyem’s ALTAR […]
Poetry
Winter 2000
Flight from the Mother Stone
This morning, we drive beyond all posted roads or trodden pathways across blank desert to the remote sacred sites—each rock, cave or mesa a locus of magic energies: myths were […]
Poetry
Summer/ Autumn 1997
Robbing the Queenies
I Two senior Grenada ladies and I, singly, spring from adjacent circular stairwells at once: three sea moles rising from our hull burrows just moments after nightfall. A sublimely pellucid […]
Poetry
Winter 1996
Three Years after the Four Days’ War
I'm met, hot off the plane, by suave Ferdinand who runs the vanguard fleet of cars for rent. Silver-thick mustachioed, neat as his goatee, luminous blue shirtjacked, spiffy, urbane: he […]
Poetry
Winter 1996
The Marriage Furies
Randall Whyte's great granddad, a purebred Scotsman, sent his only son Zachary to Barbados to manage a great sugar plantation, subsequently appointing his two Scots cousins overseers to a […]
Poetry
Winter 1996
Hosting an Idol
His status reversed overnight, from traitor on death row to populist hero-both roles illusory and deranged—Senator Winston, just three months out of prison, kept to the sidelines of life; but […]
Poetry
Spring 1990
Lifestyles Prince
Patrick's mum, a Swiss Countess, mails three thousand gilt postcards to their whole sprawled family, friends, all friends of friends, announcing—as one might a royal wedding or jazz festival— her […]
Poetry
Spring 1988
Excerpts from: Mayhem and Romance in a Cropduster Fuselage
(Dominica, West Indies) 1. That big wind, more than any other, earned its name: Dora. A single-personed identity. A Fury, with intent to take back to itself this one speck of […]
Poetry
Winter 1988
Swimming Pool Pastoral
All bags parked and shelved in our snug bungalow, we stroll toward the beach—both sorry antique Hotel Barrymore (famous old noble house converted in the mid-Fifties) is so far from […]
Poetry
Autumn 1984
The Dungeon Amorist
(Fort Charlotte, Nassau, Bahamas) We idle, circling the wide hilltop courtyard of Fort Charlotte,and bypass the centralsquare guardhouse — boxlike — which displaysa few stuffed scarecrowmodel prisoners, immortally stooped & […]