A few weeks ago blogger Megan Shaffer of Night Light Revue asked me to review Michigan poet Michael Heffernan’s new poetry collection At the Bureau of Divine Music. You can read my review here. (A word about Night Light Revue: if you’re looking for summer reading material, Shaffer always has excellent suggestions. She’s also […]
MoreLa Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri In that book which is my memory . . . On the first page that is the chapter when I first met you appear the words . . . Here begins a new life Until I read this poem I never considered what moment in […]
MoreBaby Listening by Billy Collins According to the guest information directory, baby listening is a service offered by this seaside hotel. Baby listening—not a baby who happens to be listening, as I thought when I first checked in. Leave the receiver off the hook the directory advises, and your infant can be […]
MoreWATER AND FIRE by Rick Cannon For a long time with the heavy, dreamy struggle upward, the natural cupping of the hands, the lengthy earning of a stroke, – a man does not know fire. It’s not until he sees how easily things melt and slide away, – how his father went, his mother fails, […]
MoreTo a Daughter Leaving Home by Linda Pastan When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you as you wobbled away on two round wheels, my own mouth rounding in surprise when you pulled ahead down the curved path of the park, I kept waiting for the thud of your […]
MoreBeing proved wrong can be delightful, particularly if you’re watching someone break out of the box you’ve put them in. Susan Boyle, with her washer woman looks and elegant tones, affords this pleasure, as do pretty boy actors who go to Ivy League schools and write serious fiction, and 91-year old Olga Kotelko, a record-breaking […]
MoreI made a big mistake with this poem-elfing. As a rule, I don’t read other interpretations of poems I post, or if I do, I wait until I’ve done my own ruminating. But the internet is a big booby trap (as anyone who’s innocently searched on “lubricants” knows); and as I surfed for background […]
MoreNational Poetry Month, scheduled to begin today, April 1, has been cancelled due to lack of interest. “I’m disappointed,” said poetry fan Mary Hathway. “I was ready for some kick-ass parties.” Local libraries have cancelled poetry readings and contests. “Poem-a-day” apps for the iphone are still available but can only be downloaded once a week. […]
MoreThis weekend I saw the Korean film Poetry, written and directed by Lee Chang-dong. The movie follows Mija, an elderly woman just diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer’s. She lives with her louse of a grandson (as my friend labeled him) Wook, a lazy, affectless teenage boy who never thanks her for anything. Mija learns that […]
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