The Call of the Junco Bird The Call of the Junco Bird
An English woman I've never met calls to read me her new poem about the little Texas junco bird whose cry sounded to the early settlers
Nov 26, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Edward Hirsch
‘The Heart’s Garden’ ‘The Heart’s Garden’
The day that Kenneth Rexroth died was not a dark, cold day.
Oct 31, 2002 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella
Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100
For the 43 members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 100, working at the Windows on the World restaurant, who lost their lives in the attack on the World Trade Ce...
Sep 5, 2002 / Books & the Arts / MartÃn Espada
Birthday Poem Birthday Poem
Hot, rained-on, packed-down straw, strewn then abandoned between the rows of eggplant, tomato plants, onion, and herbs catches the evening's last September gnats in pale mats and ...
Jun 13, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Lynne McMahon
‘Blue Clear Down’ ‘Blue Clear Down’
Late in her life, Lorine Niedecker collected several dozen of her poems in handmade books that she gave to three friends. One poem common to all three books is "Who Was Mary Shell...
Jun 6, 2002 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella
Ghazal for Lauren Ghazal for Lauren
Sister, they say heed the hymn in your heart. You've learned you've an odd rhythm in your heart. You and I versus our brothers: pitched war. The four of us in the swim of your ...
May 30, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Leslie Chang
Custom Custom
There is a difference it used to make, seeing three swans in this versus four in that quadrant of sky. I am not imagining. It was very large, as its effects were. Declarations ...
May 23, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Carl Phillips
Pursued by Love’s Demons Pursued by Love’s Demons
As if the back streets of our local city might dispense with their pyrrhic accumulation of dust and wineful tonality, offer a reprise of love itself, a careless love rendered g...
May 23, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Charlie Smith
Futbol Futbol
As if to move a flexible sphere from here to there with unassisted head and foot were natural and obvious. As if a dance could always bow to resolute constraint and never be dance...
May 16, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Alfred Corn
A ‘Thirst for the Divine’ A ‘Thirst for the Divine’
Charles Wright and Charles Simic count among the best poets of their generation. Each career has unfolded with considerable excitement for serious readers of contemporary poetry, ...
May 2, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Jay Parini