Poetry Archive
Naming as Paying Attention
Names can be hard for the tongue to wrap its head around. I say this with the conviction of my full being as a male, a poet, a twin, and a slight stutterer. (Of course I stutter. My brother and I lived our early lives assuming that the world,
Review: TWENTY THOUSAND PIGEONS by Justin Bigos
Twenty Thousand Pigeons Justin Bigos iO Press, 2014 1st edition sold out; inquire here When I think of twenty thousand pigeons, I think of Disney vacations and city park picnics from childhood—precious memories ruined by grey birds pooping in my hair and stealing my French fries. But when I
(Writing) Exercise: Self-compassion
I’m talking here of memory’s difficulty. Difficult not in the way I have to wrack my weak brain to remember what happened, but in the way I’m forced to face that time I let my brother, bleeding from the mouth, run the mile home alone. Difficult in the way
Review: AIMLESS LOVE by Billy Collins
Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems Billy Collins Random House, October 2013 288 Pages $16.00 Buy: book | ebook Three thousand miles away from my library—most of it translated literature, most of it tortuously postmodern—I turned in a lonely hour to my dad’s hardcover copy of Billy Collins’ Aimless
Review: LIKE A BEGGAR by Ellen Bass
Like a Beggar Ellen Bass Copper Canyon Press, March 2014 70 pages $16.00 Buy: book Exquisitely wrought in language and imagery, Ellen Bass’s third collection meditates on sequencing images. Her poems open in one place and close elsewhere. She signals this with titles that point toward the firsts and lasts,