How charitable to call it fruit, when almost nothing inside it can be eaten. Just the gelatin that thinly rinds the unpalatable seed. The rest of it all pith, all bitter, hardly a meal, even for a thin girl. But enough, at least in the myth, to be what ties Persephone half the year to…
Richard Ford was in France this past spring when he got the call. He had rented an apartment in Paris for a few months to escape distractions and do some writing. He had wanted to be difficult to reach. In April, he was eating dinner with a friend at a remote little restaurant, deep in…
The world will be no different if the twin sisters Disputing now in the linen aisle of Kaufman’s Resolve their difference about table napkins, Whether the color chosen by one is violet Or lavender or washed-out purple. No different, But that’s no reason to deem the talk insignificant. It’s important for people to make distinctions,…
They left her alone; it was what she wanted. The bay waters had not been so secret for a long while, their great labor quiet. She rowed over the calm of the ebb to an island of birds—heron, cormorant, egret waiting in the tall mangroves, placid and self-contained, as if she alone were…
While you suffered I measured flour for a birthday cake, the bleached grinding of wheat flowing from a tin scoop like water, like cold air I split walking in winter woods, snow a long white apron flung against the fissured maples, the smooth trunks of birches. While you wept I sang, the candles flared to…
Maxine Kumin: Connecting the Dots. In her eleventh poetry collection, Kumin wisely and unforgettably expands on her favorite themes: the ties and losses of family and friends, and the natural world. (W.W. Norton)
Morning let you down like a broken promise. Noon with its bright clothes stood in your way. Now it is evening, though, your favorite time, The kiss of the word feeling good in your mouth. It is sad to think of people you have failed, Who thought, early on, you lived up to your word,…
A crow settles in at the bar, and tells one crow story after another, all hard as his beak. He scatters out corn, brass cartridges, a penny, blue glass, a car key, and a ring. He orders a beer, using it to chase down shots of dark glances. Around midnight the crow flies over us,…
Jane Shore: Music Minus One. Shore’s third collection of poetry movingly traces a woman’s life from childhood to coming-of-age to parenthood, the poems striking for their jazzy melancholy and intimacy. (Picador USA)
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