March Pandemique
…but maybe I’m just a loser/who has read too much
The Social Distance Reading Series
Recent Posts
Notes on the Cinema of Depreciation
I’m sorry I stabbed Vann Marsden in the eye. It’s terrible that his wife had to die in the aftermath. The fact that she was already ill and couldn’t take the strain doesn’t alter my sadness over her passing, but when a director takes all the movies you love and remakes them as stark, near silent catalogs of gestures, the critic has to respond.
Three Poems
The languor, the drive, the traffic, the parking,/the walking blocks to public beach access,/down past an atilt row of porta-potties,
Seeking Shelter
Though the library was closed, the lights had briefly blazed on, and she guessed Baker had broken in again. When Susan rushed through the front door and saw Baker, she grabbed the desk phone and shouted that she was dialing 911. Baker then fled through the side door. Then Susan called me, the librarian of this one-room rural Vermont library.
Grief, Memory, and Language: A Review of Victoria Chang’s OBIT
Victoria Chang’s collection, Obit, seems to have anticipated the prolonged good-byes of 2020. In it, Chang says good-bye to loved ones, feelings, objects—everything we feel and know, who we were and where we’re heading—especially when someone we love is dying, and our sense of awareness is heightened.
What Comes Alive Through Death: A Review of Jill Bialosky’s Collection ASYLUM
This stunning book-length poem, broken up into 103 sections, examines the grief and trauma associated with losing a young sister from suicide. Threaded also through these lyrics is a conversation with Paul Celan’s Selected Poems and Dante’s Inferno.
Three Poems
The shoemaker labors over his leather, his work./A singular lightbulb illuminates his hands, like a ner tamid,
Three Poems
Hallmark does not make a card for this/for what we mean to each other,/for what we do when my kids are asleep./We are not married. Not husband and wife.
Two Poems
The satellites have been turned/off turned away from/other satellites.
Emoticonfiscated
It was me on Cookman Ave. that night/the newscaster was in the news/for what apparently everyone had always known
Confession
I did not consider the fact/That for the rest of your life you would only get older/If I’d been thinking, I would have held in my hand
Three Poems
In darkness / empirical evidence underhand / a fingertip rubs black / but not ink.