Guests

I’m going to use this page to link to guest poets and writers. Click on the name to go to that post. You can also use the “search” feature.

Blog

What I’m ReadingJune 30, 2025 - 7:03 pm
I’ve had a mighty struggle this past few weeks to do even a minimum of writing (determined to catch up this week…we will see, and, after that, to begin blogging again). Reading obsessively about dementia, getting lost in political news…these things do not seem especially helpful to me. On the other hand, reading poetry, and […]
Sleeping Lessons, a chapbook by J. I. KleinbergMay 23, 2025 - 6:40 pm
SLEEPING LESSONS: A POEM IN PARTS, J. I. Kleinberg. Milk & Cake Press, 2025. If you find yourself awake in the night, fretting over political mayhem, have I got a book for you. Twenty numbered parts. Twenty first lines: She taught me how to sleep – A Dickinsonian cascade of variations on a theme. Instructions […]
Nature: Poems Old and NewMay 2, 2025 - 7:52 pm
NATURE: POEMS OLD AND NEW, May Swenson (1913-1989). Houghton Mifflin, 2006. In preparation for my Creative Retirement Institute course on May Swenson, beginning next Tuesday afternoon, I’ve been reading Swenson’s poetry and a collection of essays, Body My House: May Swenson’s Work and Life, edited by Paul Crumbley and Patricia M. Gantt (Utah State Univ. […]
Plum Blossom WineApril 27, 2025 - 1:06 am
PLUM BLOSSOM WINE, Poems by Li Qingzhao, trans. by Sibyl James and Kang Xuepei (Empty Bowl Press, 2024). I had a hectic week, but this morning—with no where to go, no errands, no doctor appointments—I decided to read a book of poems. I cheated, perhaps, by picking up a small book. But, oh my. Mostly […]
A Couple of New ThingsApril 18, 2025 - 6:27 pm
Thanks to a submission push I did last fall, I have a new piece up at Afterimages, which is definitely a substack you want to check out. Click on this link to go directly to “Photographic Evidence of My Mother’s Childhood.” And I have a new book review, posted today, at Escape Into Life. Bird […]
Esther Altshul Helfgott: Listening to MozartApril 16, 2025 - 6:06 pm
LISTENING TO MOZART: POEMS OF ALZHEIMER’S, Esther Altshul Helfgott. Cave Moon Press, 2014 A more personal blogpost today. Instead of hinting about and writing around what’s going on, I want to simply admit that it has been one catastrophe after another here all year, more and more noticeable since our dog (my emotional support animal, […]
Margaret Newlin: Collected PoemsApril 13, 2025 - 1:17 am
My life continues to be challenging, but though I’m not writing much, I find that reading and talking about other people’s poems is a solace. Today I picked up Margaret Newlin’s Collected Poems, 1963-1985 (Ardis, Ann Arbor, 1986) , a book lent to me by a friend (and overdue to be returned.) When I googled […]
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha: Something about LivingApril 9, 2025 - 10:28 pm
SOMETHING ABOUT LIVING, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha. The University of Akron Press, Akron, Ohio, 2024, 81 pages, paper, $16.95, https://www.uakron.edu/uapress/. Trying to keep this to a simple appreciation of a poem, and failing, especially with this startling and powerful collection. Something about Living won the 2024 National Book Award, and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha has a whole host […]
Elder VoicesApril 9, 2025 - 2:12 am
ELDER VOICES: WISTFUL, WONDERING, WISE, Editors Marie Eaton, Carla Shafer, and Angela Boyle. Elder Voices Project, Bellingham, Washington. This anthology collects poems and essays from elders living in Whatcom County, Washington. The launch featured six writers, ending with 100-year-old essayist, Maggie Weisberg, who charmed all of us by announcing, before reading “On Being Old,” that […]
Susan Rich: Blue AtlasApril 8, 2025 - 2:17 am
I really would like to post 30 times about 30 different poets during National Poetry Month, but — let me admit up front — I’m lowering thresholds all over the place. Soon I’ll be lying inert in the doorway and you’ll have to step over me. But not today! Today, we get a poem from […]