Our father wanted to climb Mount Moriah and we refused to go unless it was understood we were going against our will— unless we could climb by suffering, dragging ourselves step by step through the boxwood glade, withheld birch, glinting ash, oak bent to the will of the south wind— that was our secret, denial,…
Meet the other man in black: David St. John, poet of the lush, the surreal, the erotic, and the exotic. His work is intellectual yet always sensual. His poetic voice is at once profound yet grounded in contemporary diction and idiom. St. John lives in Venice, California (even if his psychic self resides in that…
The dark and heavy coat she always wore hid From her as much as anyone What grew her belly out one thought at a time. And she who did not know her body, Who was surprised to feel it Created with some boy she’d barely met, Ignored the word so much a shock She was…
Some name them knees, those roots of the cypress trees in that murky swamp, rising up out of the water, though their legs beneath them, the feet, the toes, even the bodies down there at the mud’s bottom still haven’t shown up yet. So far, it’s only those bold knees that point the way. Some…
We live in a time of extraordinary literary riches. I believe that contemporary literature—both our poetry and our fiction—is not only healthy, but thriving. I believe the work of many of my contemporaries has been remarkably innovative, startlingly powerful, and deeply compelling. I believe that the greatest strength of American literature has been, at its…
Maybe it had been raining for years. By the second night, it was easy to feel that way. They had come to this spot, in the heart of Panama, two days ago, and even then it had been raining. There was no sign of respite. It was as if they had come to a different…
Reagan dead this Saturday the last— the falsifying mind cratered, the brain that was a salt block America loved to lick— but Ray Charles struck down yesterday outlasts him by three days forever now— the basic blues chord a power of the arisen— to the Lord’s child betrayed by lightless waves…
By perspective, I meant how eventually every landscape wouldn’t have to include defilement, or any other outrage, getting smaller each time we looked back on it, or forgot not to. An armload of millet and sunflowers could, despite the fact of July, just like that, turn the room October. I believed suffering happened…
Walking through Kevin Young’s house outside of Boston is like taking a physical journey through his poetry. Something of a collector, he’s filled his home with old books and photographs, contemporary art, vinyl records, and other cultural memorabilia. "I’m a pack rat," says Young. "I keep everything." It started when he was a kid, collecting…
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