“On cliffs above a beach / luxuriant in low tide after storms / littered with driftwood hurled and piled and / humanly arranged in fantastic / installations and beyond”
“Five O’Clock, January 2003,” by Adrienne Rich Read More »
I’ve never seen the author of Tender Buttons and Three Lives look as she looks in this painting by Picabia from 1937. Her head is small, perched on wide and rounded shoulders draped in brown. Beneath the cloak, a soft blue blouse with a large brooch peeks through. On her face, a sort of “oh well” smirk on thin, taut lips.
Gertrude Stein: A Portrait of the Artist Read More »
“This minute my small toes are shrinking / of their own accord. I have no say / whatsoever. Blame it on buoyancy, / without which, rambunctious and passive / as a beachball on the breakers, I / never would have bobbled here. The wild green groans / by which I lived before language / now gesture and have at me / only in dreams.”
“In the Beginning,” by Alice Fulton Read More »
We seized the night and shook it till it broke, / so time and bottles and most of our shoes / spilled from its breaking—and music gushed too: / Paris and Nikos relentless till five. // Blame them for this minefield of broken glass, / our unreasonable outbursts of joy. / Someone danced until his knees were bleeding. / Someone said she had fractured her being.
“Days of 2015,” by Christopher Bakken Read More »
Emerson once said that society was a mob, conspiring against the sovereign strength of the self. Now we are an electronic mob, and the forces of distraction are powerfully arrayed against us. It has always been the case that society never wanted a writer to write a book, something you will discover when you leave this place and try to create the space and time to write. Society doesn’t want your book of stories or poems, and you will have to push against society, as if you had your shoulder to the door of a crowded room; you will have to shove your book into existence, birth it violently.
“Serious Noticing,” by James Wood Read More »
The artists I know are perfectionists, heartlessly so, because that is required. They will paint right over a failed canvas; they will rip out every stitch and start anew. The artist comes to her material with an mix of control and surrender, and her success seems to rely on her ability to grasp a material’s specific demands, while reconciling those with her own vision. There is something there, in the material, that works against you—which requires rigor, but might bring relief.
Good Material: Toward Rigor and Resolution in the New Year Read More »
“Do you remember our first / January at Eagle Pond, / the coldest in a century? / It dropped to thirty-eight below— / with no furnace, no storm / windows or insulation. / We sat reading or writing / in our two big chairs, either / side of the Glenwood, / and made love on the floor / with the stove open and roaring. / You were twenty-eight. / If someone had told us then / you would die in nineteen years, / would it have sounded / like almost enough time?”
“Letter in the New Year,” by Donald Hall Read More »
“I’ve always been interested in death and destruction — call it an early diet of horror fiction. But over the years I’ve become more aware of decay, the slow and steady side of impermanence. Decay doesn’t make for flashy conflict, but in some ways it’s more interesting.”
On “Where There Is Ruin”: An Interview with Samuel Snoek-Brown Read More »
Rachel, oh Rachel! Mistress of my heart, irradiated queen of the desert, alien oasis, black-budget fever dream, ghost town of the future, sheepdog disco, heart of America. Shelter me in your double-wides, ll my ventricles with Alien Burgers, stun me with alcohol, swaddle me in the lights of your brilliant night sky.
“The Passion of Sheepdogs,” by John Haggerty Read More »
“Humor helps the heart to open. And heartfelt laughter leads us towards greater connection with those around us. If you can find a way to share humor with others, then there’s an openness towards greater listening and compassion. With the serious topics I write about […] there’s a way such stories can calcify the heart if one isn’t careful. I noticed this in my teaching—if I’m just giving my students the disturbing facts about humanity without humor, it can lead to depression, discouragement, and a deeper political/social apathy. So, humor seems to restore our humanity to us—it allows us to deal with suffering with a more open heart.”
On “Children of the New World”: An Interview with Alexander Weinstein Read More »
