Uncategorized Archive
Website
I am ready to launch my website. This is not something I’ve undertaken without long consideration. After all, what does a website have to do with my writing? Launching a website isn’t likely to lead me to write more poems – in fact, I spent hours trying to design
The Gambler’s Nephew
The Gambler’s Nephew Jack Matthews Etruscan Press, May 2011 240 pages $15.95 Jack Matthews’ first novel, Hanger Stout, Awake!, was published in 1967, and his latest, The Gambler’s Nephew, is already the 23rd in his half-century career. Thankfully it’s never too late to discover a writer this pleasant to
Why I Reread “Leg” by Steven Polansky
I return to “Leg,” a short story by Steven Polansky, in large part because I enjoy the way he covers my material—that is to say, the lives of believers in Protestant evangelical communities. This is not to say it isn’t his material, too. We can all write about whatever
Once More, With Feeling, Part II
Well, here we are again, and I’m sorry to say the blog has not been inundated with teachers explaining in great detail what they expect from their poetry writing seminars (looking at you, my people.) Nor have students written in saying what their own most cherished projected outcomes for
The Ice Trilogy
The Ice Trilogy Vladimir Sorokin (Translated by Jamey Gambrell) New York Review of Books, March 2011 704 pages $19.95 The Ice Trilogy, a newly translated work of fiction by Vladimir Sorokin, tells the tale of the 20th century’s tragedies and triumphs through the eccentric and abrasive narratives of—to be
Joy Rides
In passing with my mind on nothing in the world but the right of way I enjoy on the road by virtue of the law… ––William Carlos Williams, Spring and All, XI There are no more guilt-free Sunday drives, no cleanly joyful joy-rides. And maybe there never were. Maybe
Fifth Chance at a Free Issue of Ploughshares
We have another great back issue just waiting to be read this week, as a part of our free Ploughshares contest occurring in honor of our upcoming fortieth anniversary. Today, it’s the all-fiction Fall 2004 issue, guest edited by Amy Bloom and featuring stories by Thomas Beller, Debra Spark,
The Stroke of A Pen
The Stroke of a Pen: Essays on Poetry and Other Provocations Samuel Hazo University of Notre Dame Press, May 2011 136 pages $20.00 In the semi-rural pocket of Pennsylvania where I grew up, poets are a rarity. Last year, as I prepared to uproot my life and move to
Why I Reread the Sun Also Rises
I first read The Sun Also Rises in college, in a survey course of the American Novel. I don’t know if such survey courses even exist anymore, or if Hemingway is still taught to our undergraduates. But I took this class during springtime in Kentucky, which is long and
Once More, with Feeling, Part I
This fall, for the first time in three years, I’ll be teaching an undergraduate poetry writing seminar at my university. Because it’s been some years, it’s time to rethink that class; it’s also time because, as in most institutions, class sizes are rising, and the good old standby of