If you visit this blog regularly, you are probably a reader of literature at least sometimes. But what about when you get sick of so-called literature. What do you read then? Or do you ever get sick of "the good stuff"? Lately my wanderings have led me to foreign mystery writers such as Henning Mankell… Continue reading Divergences from the Path
Category: Books
Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
It’s a poem! It’s prose! It’s a new genre entirely in Claudia Rankine’s 4th book of poems, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (Graywolf 2004). This book is riveting, both in terms of its content and its hybrid form. Part cultural critique, part memoir, this volume provides a seamless marriage of the personal and the political.… Continue reading Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
Relics
Take a look at your bookcase and list the titles of a few books you haven’t looked at in the past 5 years.
What are you reading?
What are you reading this week? Do you read one book at a time? I tend to be reading one novel and one or two books of poems, weaving back and forth among them. My short list appears in the left column. I’m enjoying all three of these.
Every Word
Quote by Emerson: "Every word was once an animal." Thoughts on this?
Pastorelles
When I was a child growing up in rural Arkansas, sometimes my dad would take me fishing. We would sit on either end of a banged-up metal boat, drifting along the shore of a lake in the early morning hours. I’m not talking rod and reel bass master fishing. We would casually cast out our… Continue reading Pastorelles
More about Berryman
Thanks for the interesting comments on John Berryman. Re: the observations by Christa and Jeff, I guess the photo (taken by my father) that I posted with A Berryman House provides a sense of desolation, devastation? Jeff’s analogy of the Turner painting is interesting in many ways. I’m thinking about the idea of this landscape… Continue reading More about Berryman
Artifacts
I think a big part of my motivation as a writer is that I love making things. Truth be told, I still dye Easter eggs every year (sometimes with a niece and nephew to legitimize the process, sometimes not), and it brings me joy. Artwork I’ve done at every age still hangs on the walls… Continue reading Artifacts
“blue: the sea, the sky, the unknown”
"blue: the sea, the sky, the unknown" a stone to pound open greenalmond husks — white inside the seed inside the seed finding the moon reflected in waves .. . another mystery: the deep bluesea made of clear water how our eyes create love by Meredith Stricker, from tenderness shore© Meredith Stricker
Pieces
Christa’s post has encouraged me to keep adding to my own story, so here’s a little more of it. After the 2 semesters of freshman English I was really at a loss. By hunting for orange spines or skinny books, I was often able to find some kind of poetry, but I didn’t know a… Continue reading Pieces
Orange Spines
The latest issue of FENCE magazine reminded me of this. After my freshman English course, I had pretty much completely cruised the poetry selection in the Norton anthology. I was not sure how to proceed. I had developed an appetite for poetry but wasn’t sure where to go get seconds. I decided that the slim… Continue reading Orange Spines
How to Stay Curious
I’ve been considering the possibility of starting a blog about all-things-poetry for many months now. It’s not that I think I have the answers. Or even the questions. I’m not looking for a soapbox. But I am interested in the blog as zocolo, as town square, a place of exchange and conversation. I attended two… Continue reading How to Stay Curious
Robin Reagler 