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 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 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 […]
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 […]