Anne, Allen, You, Me
National Poetry Month This Day of April 21, 2022Today’s poem: Anne Waldman, Notes on Sitting Beside a Noble Corpse Where would I be without Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg? In my own Shimmelstoy way, I…
Category: Correspondence
Love Theme (NPM, 4.8.22)
Elizabeth I, When I Was Fair and Young When I was fair and young, then favor graced me. Of many was I sought their mistress for to be. But I did scorn them all and answered them…
Szym and Rez (NPM, 4.6.22)
Wislawa SzymborskaABC I’ll never find out nowWhat A. thought of me.If B. ever forgave me in the end.Why C. pretended everything was fine.What part D. played in E.’s silence.What F. had been expecting, if anything.Why…
4.4.22, National Poetry Month
Contemporary war is a bureaucratic and capitalistic enterprise that requires its bored clerks, soulless administrators, ignorant taxpayers, contradictory priests, and encouraging families. If we understood that a war machine is a pervasive system of complicity…
You Can Write Poetry!
Diane di PrimaOLD AGE: The Dilemma most of what I’m writing not that interesting but the act of writing itself more compelling than ever ********* Dear Siobhan Thank you for your snail-mail, but I…
Reflections on the Intellectual Life by Irina S.
In one of my classes, we are reading a variety of books on the love of learning. I asked Irina (a nom de plume) if she’d be willing to share a few reflections on Zena…
Letter, 19 August 2014
Dear Candice, Yesterday, even as I was contemplating taking a break from Facebook, I noticed that there was an event calling for people to come downtown for a protest re: Ferguson. The goal was…
Dirda on Proust
Dear CK Michael Dirda is one of my favorite bibliophiles. I have several of his books, which, like Mustich‘s tome, I regularly browse in utmost delight. This morning in his Bound to Please, I came…
For ZG
Poetry as no big dealPoetry in 2 1/2 minutesPoetry to send to yr maPoetry as an escape into realityPoetry the realest it getsPoetry better than falling in lovePoetry the universal tribePoetry made of tears of…