Lexicon: “the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge” A lexicon can be vast, but it can also be narrow and exact. Horse people have a lexicon. Dock-workers have a lexicon. Waitresses have a lexicon. My first assignment in the poetry class I’m teaching is to list 25 words relating to a subject. […]
I am teaching a poetry class — a project a LONG time in the works, by the way — and deserving of some fanfare. The class begins Friday, May 26 — two classes, sort of — one on-ground, 3:30-5:00 (at my house; there are a couple seats left), and one on-line, 11:30-1:00 (plenty of room). […]
BROWN: POEMS, Kevin Young. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2018, Luis Alberto Urrea did such a fine job capturing this book in his 2018 New York Times review, that…well…why should I even try? Kevin Young’s necessary new book of witness creates a parade through time, and I love a parade. Especially one with such good […]
EVA-MARY, Linda McCarriston. Tri-Quarterly Books, Northwestern University, 2020 Ridge Avenue, Evanston, IL 60208, 1991, 78 pages $10.95 paper. A friend gave this book to me in 1993, the year my twins were born. I don’t know when I read it, though I know I eventually did. Since then—for most of the last thirty years—it has […]