1. Those Absent Any reasonable baby shower would have properly culminated in the videocorder with the instant playback feature. The present was addressed to The Formerly Thin Addie Ling from her three tactless brothers, and arrived suspiciously wrapped in a brown paper grocery bag. There was no box or warranty card. If the camera was…
Gray cloud like a sweater pulled over the heart of the moon. High-napped purple sky. Why are so many friends Leaving or getting left behind? Mao’s anti-sparrow campaign: to kill and eat the birds That were eating the grain. Winter sun drifts away Leaving thin taffy light. Venus Mercury Jupiter— Three pearls in the morning…
Maura Stanton, Life Among the Trolls, poems: The cool, elegant surfaces of the narratives and lyrics in Stanton’s third collection conceal fiery depths. She penetrates the disguises which cloak the Iago-like figures-friends, bosses, lovers, colleagues-who manipulate our world, and who would like to remake us in their image. (Carnegie-Mellon)
Bobby Bell’s fingers numbered four to a hand. His thumb and pointer were identical to God’s, but the other two were just fleshy stubs, stunted and fused on each slender paw. He was a dumb kid, besides, if progress in school is a fair measure. He sized me up my first week in town, then…
It’s winter in the tiny motel. The man and woman lie down naked and freezing. A blizzard streaming on the television, gloss of ice on the windows, the bourbon a bottle of fire. After love she licks his cold sweat, trying to seal herself into him. Smoke from their cigarettes rising, disappearing as they sink…
Gerald Stern, This Time: New and Selected Poems: In his tenth book, Stern collects many poems, from 1972-1995, that are no longer available in other editions. Those favorite works, along with new poems, including affecting elegies to Larry Levis and Allen Ginsberg, prove why Stern is regarded as one of our masters, a modern Walt…
The organist pumped out the blurred tones of “Just as I Am,” the song sinking like a rusted hook in Jack’s chest. Jack locked his ankles, clenched his knees to the underside of the slick oak pew as his grandfather, Emmett, snored quietly beside him. Stop it. Please stop it, Jack said to the whirling…
How many nights have I lain here like this, feverish with plans, with fears, with the last sentence someone spoke, still trying to finish a conversation already over? How many nights were wasted in not sleeping, how many in sleep—I don’t know how many hungers there are, how much radiance or salt, how many times…
Derek Walcott, The Bounty, poems: The 1992 Nobel Prize winner lovingly evokes his native land, the island of St. Lucia, in this luminous new book. Haunting, magnificent, The Bounty gives us Walcott at the top of his form. (Noonday)
No products in the cart.