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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
