Entries by Bethany

Nature: Poems Old and New

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

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 Things

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 Mozart

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, […]