On October 19th, I had the great pleasure of attending poet Josh Bell’s reading at the Perrine Gallery in Stewart Memorial Library. Bell is the author of two books of poetry: No Planets Strike and Alamo Theory. Fellow poet Jillian Weise also read at this event on Coe College’s campus. A Briggs-Copeland Lecturer on English … Continue reading
Tag Archives: poet
Fall 2010 / Issues / Poetry 2010 / Volume 41
Lips — Lyn Lifshin
Yours, honey, were so perfect, a little rosebud mouth, not those puffed up blubbery things, my mother says when I pointed out the models’ collagen petals. “Roses,” my mother always says, “that’s what yours were, a nice tiny nose. That’s from you father. One good thing. Not a big ugly one like I’ve got.” I … Continue reading
Leaving Men in the Midwest. Or, She Dreams She Slips — Lyn Lifshin
away like magic marker ink in the rain before it’s too late, before she stays in cities like Madison or Oshkosh—watch out in Minneapolis, in Green Bay Stoned on the lips of men with stranger verbs, with nouns like Dude and, Alike, dreaming from a bridge a poet could jump from, 16 arms around her, … Continue reading
Train Atlas — John Thornburg
“the music in this town,” says Leo “is too fashion conscious for me.” His business plan involves opening a hotel in which all the rooms look like subway cars and vibrate pertinently with lights that move past the windows. At the front desk you have to turn in your clothes and they give you old … Continue reading
Gardeners — Perry Thompson
those who never lifted earth lift my son’s body in its sleeping whispered prayers can’t hide the open wound in his chest but i have hidden seeds in the boy so when he’s planted in the ground rebellion will push up like some crazy crimson flower Continue reading
Jellyfish — James Doyle
ordain the beach, little pontiffs in the rolling brightness of their robes. Sacred sand now. The blessed in their bikinis wallow for art among daubs of minor poison, see-through stinging like grace-notes against the sun’s glares, edgings in relief to bring out the Mediterranean day. No one goes in the water before or after the … Continue reading
The Luncheon — James Doyle
They set a table out on the Alps just for us. “This is a neutral country,” the waiter said, “you can have anything you want.” The mountains were very proud of their muscles, flexed them every chance they got. They would rub away any whiff from the rest of the world if it tried to … Continue reading
Things We Have Seen Before — Jeffrey N. Johnson
His face hidden by newsprint, smoke rising, slow methodical turning of the pages. Sitting at his feet, I was struck by the largeness of his shoes and my smallness before him. Headlines read of Nixon’s pardon and Patty Hearst’s arrest, but I could not read them until my grandfather was done with the paper. For … Continue reading
Aging — Ann Niedringhaus
I close my fingers, try to grasp water. The tighter I clench, the faster it runs away. The April 15, 2007, issue of The New York Times carried a headline: Aging: Disease or Business Opportunity? I have long read obituaries. They change as I grow older. Now I take inordinate comfort in those for the … Continue reading
Selected Letters — John Azark
“I’ve never written one,” my daughter laughs as I hand her the selected letters of Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe, a tome as heavy as her laptop. “It’s only Volume 1, they exchanged 25,000 pages in their lifetime! Imagine making that kind of effort even in love.” “Never,” she says, “too bad they couldn’t text,” a … Continue reading
