In early winter, the grass in North America still retains a cast of its autumn green, but after a few nights of deep freeze have killed the last of the ticks and fleas, the green turns greenish-grey. It’s then I begin remembering Thomas Hardy’s moving, highly-compressed and resonant sixteen-liner, “Neutral Tones.”
Come A Little Bit Closer Now Baby: Thomas Hardy’s “Neutral Tones” Read More »
Reading a writer’s posthumous diary is a guilty undertaking—absorbing words I was never meant to see, glimpsing the private corners of a mind I was never meant to explore.
Mere Sensibilities Read More »
We have all participated in the discussion about the new ways of reading, the end of the book, the new literacy, etc., etc., ad infinitum. And things are certainly changing.
Headlines cycling. War, officially-forgotten diseases, hot-shot bailouts, shameless status updating, neglected continents, orchestral indie pop grandeur, absurd year-end best-of lists.
As Beautiful as the Chance Encounter of a Coffee Mug and a Coaster on a Coffee Table Read More »
I was a longtime cell phone holdout. Even while living in Silicon Valley (or perhaps because of its fast-paced, ever-wired atmosphere), I loathed the idea of becoming “one of those people.”
Video Killed the Radio Star OMG WTF LOL, or Reflections of a Conflicted Facebook User Read More »
Since I’ve been doing a lot of readings lately, I’ve been thinking about the Poetry Reading as an antidote to the Internet.
The Poetry Reading in Real Life Read More »
While I loathe the frantic search for expensive gifts in shopping malls resounding with irritating music, and while I sigh with relief when the decorations are finally taken down and the last desiccated Christmas-tree needles are hoovered up, I do not agree with Ebeneezer Scrooge that “Every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.”
The Little Christmas Read More »
Like the bulk of writers and artists in the U.S., I do many, many things in order to carve out space for my creative work.
On Retreat in Vermont Read More »
Beck has a slow-jam my sister and I used to love when we were growing up. It’s called “Debra,” and it goes like this: “I wanna get with you / And your sister / I think her name’s Debra / I pick you up late at night after work / I said lady, step inside my Hyundai / I’m gonna take you up to Glendale.”
“What happens in the Hyundai stays in the Hyundai.” Read More »
When my daughter called from college to talk about coming home for Thanksgiving, she mentioned in passing that she’d just seen something she thought I might enjoy at the library—a display of first edition poetry books, including a first edition of Paradise Lost.
First Editions in Hand Read More »
