“All the desert pupfish in the world weigh less than a Filet-o-Fish sandwich”—Elizabeth Kolbert, Under a White Sky I still order my groceries on line. A man or woman from Instacart delivers them, essential workers paid next to nothing. I tip 20%, then give another tip when Philippe or Maya drops the dozen plastic […]
I got out of bed on two strong legs—words from Jane Kenyon’s “Otherwise” and true this morning. I fetched the Sunday paper from the lip of the driveway—yes, I’m the old lady wearing a bathrobe in public, though in winter it’s under my parka. Drinking tea, enjoying the silence, I read about Merrick Garland until […]
My new laptop came with a subscription to Apple TV, so this month I decided to take “Dickinson,” the comedy/drama that premiered last November, out for a spin. The series is based—very loosely—on Alfred Habegger’s 2002 biography, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books. Reviewers noted how his book “analyzes his subject’s experiences from a […]
The publication of Ira Sadoff’s ninth book of poems, COUNTRY, Living, has given me two opportunities: to review it for Ron Slate’s excellent On the Seawall, and—thanks to Joyce’s generosity—to reflect upon a formative poetry workshop Ira taught at Antioch College in the spring of 1974, which I remember as a rare confluence of good […]
Florence Howe, pioneer and architect of Women’s Studies as an academic discipline, died last month at 91. She founded The Feminist Press in 1970, devoting volumes to the unheard and the unsung. I remember when the press brought Kate Chopin’s work back into print, and how “The Awakening” became a staple of college English classes, […]
April 22 was the 25th anniversary of Jane Kenyon’s death, and the following night several poets and I were scheduled to read from Graywolf’s The Best Poems of Jane Kenyon at Porter Square Books in Cambridge. Of course, the event was cancelled; I spent time reading her poems to myself instead. With a broadside of […]
The uproar over the Poetry Foundation’s rote statement of support for nation-wide anti-racist protests recently forced the resignation of Henry Bienen from the board. Last month’s open letter to the Foundation by a roster of poets asks for “much more robust local programming, …large contributions to organizations such as Assata’s Daughters, Brave Space Alliance, and […]
According to “My History with Stars,” a mom spoon-fed her daughter “stars instead of peas;” by middle school, they’d all “ricochet” inside her, either “trying to become one/or forming a constellation.” Aly Pierce’s beautifully constructed first book ripples with energy, fashioning interplanetary systems through her mastery of the language of astrophysics, classical myth, and human […]
Here in lockdown, I spend a lot of time looking out my study window. We stock a bird feeder with seed and suet, so we get the vegetarian finches and omnivorous woodpeckers, as well as squirrels that leap from branches or forage the mossed and muddy ground below. I haven’t seen a New England spring […]