“Fish, Seafood on Track to Disappear by 2048: Study”: the headline catches my eye as I open my Web browser. I click on the link and read the latest. “I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are—beyond anything we expected,” comments a Canadian … [Read more...]

After Ambrosio’s desire for Matilda cools, he turns his lascivious attention to the young Antonia, daughter of the proud Elvira, his confidante. Having employed occult arts by means of which to enter Antonia’s bedchamber and render her defenseless against his lust, … [Read more...]

I feel tremendously honored to have been included on this panel and in this celebration; I want to thank Nagueyalti Warren for the invitation and extend my congratulations to everyone who has been part of fostering this amazing phenomenon, Cave Canem, which has … [Read more...]

1. thinking I saw a prayer shawl in the park but it was some dude in an African-type cape 2. horoscope: race clusters and clumps in your vicinity this week 3. as Thelonius bops behind some so-called Nut with a Nuke 4. that small blast or failed blast or … [Read more...]

“El Corno Emplumado,” she said….“I read all of the back issues for a feminist studies symposium. It wasn’t that I loved all of the poetry, but there was something wonderful there….I could never put my finger on what it was, exactly, that gave me such a sensation of … [Read more...]

I didn’t think I had to rush to read Bea Gates’s new poetry collection, Ten Minutes. After all, we’ve been friends for years, are in a poetry group together, and both teach in the Goddard MFA Writing Program. I was familiar with all of the poems, had seen many in … [Read more...]

Yesterday the drizzly overcast sky, which made the house seem so gloomy, wrapped the Botanic Garden in supple gray allure. Granite boulders acquired a silver sheen. The several trunks of a great dark-bodied elm showed off their polished, handsome volume, strong as … [Read more...]

If death were single but it comes mingled The inauspicious day has come and gone. The ritual fingering of wounds in the media, public ceremonies the equivalent of banging on muffled gongs, chanting of endless dirges and performance of rituals to ward off evil … [Read more...]

So, I’ve had to stop blogging for a while. Summer seemed like a good excuse. Now it’s Labor Day, which means to me that routines must be resumed or forever abandoned. Resume, then. Efficiency is going to be the watchword this time around. First thought, best … [Read more...]

In a recent issue of The New Yorker, Frank Bidart has a remarkable short poem entitled "To the Republic." The poem's speaker relates a dream in which a massed multitude of Union and Confederate dead appear, traveling upon a noiseless railroad. "Disconsolate that we … [Read more...]