November 1, 2015
Ordinary Girls
We started talking about dying long before the first woman jumped. What our parents would do once we were gone. What Mr. Nuñez, the assistant principal at Nautilus Middle School, […]
September 1, 2015
Devotion and Witness
Before the Door of Cod: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry, Jay Hopler and Kimberly Johnson, eds. Yale University Press, 2013.425 pp. $35.00. Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English 1500-2001. […]
September 1, 2015
Mēl
Meal (mēl) n. The quantity of milk given by a cow at any one milk ing; also, the time of milking, e.g., R. W. Dickson Practical Agriculture (1807): it may […]
July 1, 2015
Ten New Ways to Read Ronald Johnson’s “Radi os”
It was a dog that introduced me to the work of Ronald Johnson. Or rather it was the dog’s owner, a friend and poet, who—having named his dog Ronald Johnson—ensured […]
July 1, 2015
Language and Memory
Human Chain. By Seamus Heaney. Farrar, Straus and Ciroux, 2010. 85 pp. $24.00. White Egrets. By Derek Walcott. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. 86 pp. $24.00. 1 In his autobiography […]
May 1, 2015
Alive Together
I live in an old oak grove. The long, entangled branches shift above the houses. One avenue is a bent, fissured canopy—I walk under two or three times a day. […]
May 1, 2015
Hokusai’s Octopus: A Romp at the Edge of the Deep
The Fisherman’s Wife In his print The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, the Japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849) shows a large octopus performing cunnilingus on a naked woman while a smaller […]
March 1, 2015
The Clouding of the Clear Clam Chowder
Though he can’t see too well, though his perception has given up on breadth as well as depth, though deep is something he applies now only to his favorite gaping […]
March 1, 2015
Garden of the Fugitives
At night, in the fish-light of the moon, the dead wear our white shirts To stay warm, and litter the fields. We pick them up in the mornings, dewy pieces […]
March 1, 2015
Carpe Vitam: How to Do Things with Spontaneity
By the brokenness of his composition the poet makes himself master of a certain weapon which he could possess himself of in no other way. William Carlos Williams, “Prologue” to […]
January 1, 2015
A Reverse Alphabet for Finishing
Zzeloypia “n. fantastical enthusiasm in advocating a cause, or carrying out an enterprise.” (Webster’s)* One of my earliest memories. I must have been three or, at most, four years old. […]
January 1, 2015
Zeno’s Arrow, Cupid’s Bow: Structure, Process, and Poetry’s Dream of the Unified Field
It’s easy to be mysterious about mystery. The difficult thing, the beautiful thing, is to be clear about mystery. —B.H. Fairchild Reason loves a good paradox, tight as it is […]