Philip Schultz‘s latest books are Living in the Past (Harcourt, 2004) and The Holy Worm of Praise (Harcourt, 2002). He founded and directs the Writers Studio in New York City and lives in East Hampton.
Poetry
Sept/Oct 2017
Welcome to the Springs
The dispersion and reconstitution of the self. That’s the whole story. —Charles Baudelaire In memory of Robert Long Here I am at your grave, again.Often enough, driving around East […]
Poetry
Summer 2005
The Magic Kingdom
It's a lovely May Sunday, and my old dogs limp behind me up the beach as my sons scour the ocher sand like archivists seeking the day's quota of mystery. […]
Fiction
Autumn 1982
Upstart Crows: An Excerpt from the Novel
One of my main failings was my powerful attraction to people who appeared most indifferent to me at first. Lila couldn’t have been cooler, while Max, well, getting to know […]
Contemporary American Poetry
Summer 1982
Ode to Desire
What rage, our bodies twisted like wires in the brain's switchboard, hurt plugged to joy, need to despair, how it happens so quickly, this entering of another's soul like molecules […]
Contemporary American Poetry
Summer 1982
For My Mother
The hand of peace you sent from Israelhangs on my wall like an ironic testamentto the one quality we have never shared.I imagine you peering into that ancient vistaas if […]
Contemporary American Poetry
Summer 1982
A Guide for the Perplexed
One madman laughs at another, and they each give enjoyment to one another. If you watch closely, you will see that the maddest one gets the biggest laugh. ERASMUS There's […]
Poetry
Spring 1981
Dante in Exile
Dante wrote his wife, Gemma, about his garden in spring which grew double-breasted roses & plum trees big as oaks, but this was in Ravenna, where he lived in exile […]
Poetry
Spring 1981
Shane
There was no moon & the horizon a fire breaking over the black earth & the man on horseback floated into the red plum of the sky & did not […]
Poetry
Spring 1981
Interior with Arches: After Piranesi
Despair has never been better fitted to the human eye. Archimedes with all his fancy levers couldn’t have done gravity more honor, but Piranesi wanted more than desultory grandeur. I […]
Poetry
Spring 1981
Pumpernickel
Monday mornings Grandma rose an hour early to make rye, onion & challah, but it was pumpernickel she broke her hands for, pumpernickel that stank up the neighborhood & for […]
Poetry
Spring 1980
Ode
Grandma stuffed her fur coat into the icebox. God Himself couldn’t convince her it wasn’t a closet. “God take me away this minute!” was her favorite Friday night prayer. Nothing […]
Poetry
Spring 1980
Mrs Applebaum’s Sunday Dance Class
Her red pump tapping, her ankle-length gown slit at the knee, Mrs Applebaum lined us up while her husband tuned his piano, his bald head shining under the Temple’s big […]
Philip Schultz
This interview was conducted by Ronald A. Sharp at Philip Schultz’s apartment in New York on January 24, 2014, just a couple weeks before Norton’s publication of his The Wherewithal: […]