I have a blind date with destiny:/ no doubt I won’t be recognized.
“What Are the Prospects?” by Amy Lemmon
The question I asked/ every time I tried the online Tarot reading site,/ hoping again and again for some ancient truth/ to blow up like a billboard in living color...
“‘Don’t Let Me Down’: Eleven Facts About the Beatles” by Joanna Penn Cooper
John Lennon tells me these things, and it’s possible that John is the devil. I can tell by the way he stares out so intently from the poster.
“A Room with a Prayer” by Karen Schoemer
She reminds me of my Italian cousins. Square brick houses on tight suburban streets with Madonnas-in-bathtubs on front lawns.
“For Coloreds Only” by Daniel Summerhill
Still, somehow, each time I boarded,/ the jetway seemed a partition in which/ I could change in and out of my skin at will
‘It was by living out the theory that we enraged so many others’: An Interview with Michael Gottlieb
In What We Do: Essays for Poets (Chax Press 2016) Michael Gottlieb addresses poetry, poetry-making, and what it means to live among a community of poets. It's a sequel of sorts to Memoir and Essay, Gottlieb’s 2011 account of his early days as a member of the Language poets, which remains a must-read for those considering a… Continue reading ‘It was by living out the theory that we enraged so many others’: An Interview with Michael Gottlieb
‘The first aeronauts were women shamelessly fornicating their way through the clouds’: An Interview with Kathryn Nuernberger
Poet and lyric essayist Kathryn Nuernberger won the 2015 James Laughlin award, joining the company of poets like fellow BOA Editions pressmates, Li-Young Lee, Jillian Weise, and the late Brigit Pegeen Kelly. Having been familiar with her 2010 Antivenom Poetry Award–winning Rag & Bone, The End of Pink fascinated me with its deftness of… Continue reading ‘The first aeronauts were women shamelessly fornicating their way through the clouds’: An Interview with Kathryn Nuernberger
“Become so fluid” by E. Kristin Anderson
Wanderlust knit a modern beat, often synchronous, the way we dress. Eight years would know: there are always women a long way from the world, smaller, interpreting the lens of American skinny jeans. The feminine, breezing around, messy— we may be our edge, closer to home, full with style. This is an erasure poem. Source material:… Continue reading “Become so fluid” by E. Kristin Anderson
“Sweet Wolf #1” by Darren C. Demaree
We’ve named all of the animals & we’ve put our fingers into the names of each of them. We’ve dragged their names up to our faces & forced them to meet our made up world. Sometimes we are given kisses. Sometimes there is a great warmth. We know they are wild. We know there is… Continue reading “Sweet Wolf #1” by Darren C. Demaree
‘Mythmaking, second-hand information, and outright lies’: An Interview with Sarah Sweeney
Nonfiction writer Sarah Sweeney was new to me, but as soon as I read an essay’s opening line of “I never planned to throw my tampon on a stranger’s car,” I knew that her writing was something that I would enjoy immensely. Her most recent collection, Tell Me If You’re Lying, adds up to a… Continue reading ‘Mythmaking, second-hand information, and outright lies’: An Interview with Sarah Sweeney
