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, […]
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 […]
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 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 […]