Another book I’m reading—very, very slowly—is Emily Dickinson: The Gorgeous Nothings, compiled and edited by Marta Werner and Jen Bervin. (Christine Burgin / New Directions, 2013). The work of at least twenty years for the editors, these late fragments and drafts, scribbled on envelopes and the backs of letters, come to life in this edition, […]
POETRY AS SURVIVAL, Gregory Orr, University of Georgia Press, 2002. In the depths of a blues my husband used to call “the Dempsey Dumpster,” I had a dream, or a fragment of dream that woke me in the winter dark, and this single line struck me and stuck with me, long after the details of […]
DRESSING IN THE DARK, Kathleen Flenniken, Lynx House Press, 2025. A new book of poems by Kathleen Flenniken is always a cause for rejoicing. The latest addition to the prestigious Pacific Northwest Poetry Series, edited by Linda Bierds, Dressing in the Dark is a paean to memory, loss, and survival. Flenniken has arranged thirty-nine poems […]
GROUND WORK: POEMS 2020-2025, Michael Daley, Ravenna Press 2025 It’s my pleasure today to share a poem from Michael Daley’s newest book, Ground Work. My full review appears in the current print edition of Rain Taxi, and you can learn more about Michael by visiting his page at Empty Bowl, or Poets & Writers. (My […]