Archive for August, 2009
Monday, August 31st, 2009
“Adult Night at Skate World” by Christina Kallery
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Christina Kallery
ADULT NIGHT AT SKATE WORLD
You’d think it was an eighth grade dance,
the way we stand shyly eying each other
when the first slow notes sound for couples’ skate.
A fifty-ish man in a striped headband
and custom skates fit with blinking lights
asks would I mind? So we roll from the worn
carpet [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Audio, Poems by Tim
Sunday, August 30th, 2009
LIMOUSINE, MIDNIGHT BLUE by Jamey Hecht
Review by Joanne Baines
LIMOUSINE, MIDNIGHT BLUE
by Jamey Hecht
Red Hen Press
P.O. Box 3537
Granada Hills, CA 91394
2009, 80 pp., $16.95
ISBN-13 978-1597091282
www.redhen.org
It would be wonderful for all history lessons to be presented in poetry, plays and song. The dry historical texts with their unfamiliar names and dates are so easily forgotten once the test has been passed. If [...]
No Comments » - Posted in E-Reviews by Megan
Saturday, August 29th, 2009
“Swimming Lesson” by Charles Harper Webb
Charles Harper Webb
SWIMMING LESSON
We want to give our son the power
to flutter-kick across death’s bright
blue surface, dive down deep
to where the treasure lies, and swim it up.
We want him to love pool parties—
to guard the lines of half-dressed girls—
to backstroke, butterfly, and walk
on water for their awe-struck eyes.
We want a swimmer’s body for him:
slow pulse [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Poems by Megan
Friday, August 28th, 2009
“A Visit to the SuperMart” by William G. Ward
William G. Ward
A VISIT TO THE SUPERMART
There are reservoir-tipped Shaker condoms hooked openly in plain view on
aisle 14 which causes Rev. Day conniptions, and I remember when you had to
edge up to the druggist and ask for rubbers and he would palm a pack into your
hand like he was breaking all ten commandments, and now [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Poems by Megan
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
“Blue Willow: Persephone Falling” by Alison Townsend
Alison Townsend
BLUE WILLOW: PERSEPHONE FALLING
“Depression is hidden knowledge.”
—James Hillman
You think it will never happen again.
Then one day in November it does, the narrow,
dusty boards of the trapdoor you fell through
twenty years before cracking apart, a black grin
opening its toothless mouth, darkness seeping out
to fill the dead cornfields rattling around you.
That sound’s back in your head [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Poems by Megan
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
“The Tears of India” by John Spaulding
John Spaulding
THE TEARS OF INDIA
My old man’s dead and my boy’s in prison.
He got pissed and climbed the razor wire fence
so he’d get shot. Only he just got cut up.
Then they put him in detention for six months.
The idea is when anyone is born
something can happen.
But it don’t.
You want to know your place
in the family [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Poems by Megan
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
AMERICAN FUTURE by Peter Bethanis
Review by Michael Meyerhofer
AMERICAN FUTURE
by Peter Bethanis
Entasis Press
Suite 72
1901 Wyoming Avenue NW
Washington, DC
ISBN 978-0-9800999-4-2
2009, 100 pp., $12.00
www.entasispress.com
I am still reeling from Peter Bethanis’s American Childhood, a wonderfully refreshing book full of big, good poems that span a twenty year period (1988-2008) and range in topic from American consumerism to the life of Li Po, along [...]
No Comments » - Posted in E-Reviews by Megan
Monday, August 24th, 2009
“Memory” by Joan I. Siegal
Joan I. Siegal
MEMORY
As though darkness were a hand,
a tactile memory
like playing the piano.
You touch lost things:
The texture of green walls
in the living room where you lived.
Walls green as a forest at midnight
of the new moon. How a stain
on the ceiling was a bird’s wing
in the shadows of the table lamp. You
and your sister on the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Poems by Megan
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009
“Telephone Lines” by Eric Paul Shaffer
Eric Paul Shaffer
TELEPHONE LINES
When the telephone first came to our upcountry farm in Kula,
there was only one wire. The numbers were a digit different,
but it was the same line. When anybody’s rang, ours rang
in the kitchen, and so rang the receivers in every other house.
No matter what somebody said, anybody could be listening,
and everybody knew [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Poems by Megan
Saturday, August 22nd, 2009
“Gift Skull” by Doug Ramspeck
Doug Ramspeck
GIFT SKULL
For years she kept it hanging like a mute wind chime
from a sweetgum limb near her tomato plants.
A bleached white possum skull she’d discovered
with her fingers while planting seeds. The dead mother us,
she thinks each time she sees it, as though we suckle
at the open eye socket, as though fifty teeth are the [...]
