On the Bus with Rosa Parks by Rita Dove
Rita Dove, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, poems: In her seventh collection, Dove mines American mythologies and histories to brilliant effect, arriving at relevant and artful poems that stir and sing. (Norton)
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Palisades
I am a good confidante, and I’ll tell you the secret: never offer advice, merely listen. You may repeat, ratify, sympathize, query, even divulge a tidbit or two, whip up the objective correlative, but you must never give an opinion about what your friend should do next. Never, never, never. The summer of my separation…
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Obit
The lovely lady posted in red No Hunting. Last night the supreme hunter crossed the meadow, into the house, to the target.
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Oedipus at Colonus from Sophocles, 2, edited by David R. Slavitt and Palmer Bovie by George Garrett
George Garrett, Oedipus at Colonus, play: Garrett’s scintillating translation is included in Sophocles, 2, edited by David R. Slavitt and Palmer Bovie, which rounds out the Penn Greek Drama Series, the first complete translations of Sophocles in fifty years. (Pennsylvania)
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Please Help Find
Why was it, Janice thought, that everything took longer than you wanted? Like life. It was the last day of summer, their last day together, and all the way upstate her mother went on about Cornell-the boys she dated, the friends she made-going “oh,” and “oh!” over the radio until Janice’s head went completely blank,…
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Engaging Diane
A few things straight up: I’m mounting my stag, later I’ll slash his throat, drain his blood; I’ll gut him and he’ll sate me, but for now he’s my prop. My foot pressed firmly upon his bloody breast, his hoof in my hand, I speak. My granddaddy was a Baptist minister, my daddy a newspaperman….
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The Mercy by Philip Levine
Philip Levine, The Mercy, poems: Levine’s eighteenth volume is at turns touching and heartbreaking, enchanting and brutal, but always compelling. This is a book of essential journeys, from birth to death, from innocence to experience, from youth to age, from here to there. (Knopf)
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Every Day a Little Death
I liked Gretchen better when she wasn’t trying to kill me. Here’s what she used: a Colt .38; a heavy-handled hatchet; a pair of powder-blue knitting needles (one in each ear, a quick thrust, and I’d be gonzo, Gretchen said); and a gleaming silver-tipped syringe, its cylinder filled with something thick and yellow. This was…
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Missing World
In the grand scheme of things, These words are smaller Than one pixel in a black And white photograph, A grain of sand, smaller Than molecules—no— Smaller than that. Zoom out, as in those old Science films in junior high, From one letter of one Of these words, out— To the room, above The house,…