Miguel Hernández’s “Idea of a Poem”

 MY IDEA OF A POEM   What is a poem? A beautiful affected lie. An insinuated truth. Only by insinuating it will a truth not appear a lie. A truth as precious and hidden as anything from a mine. One needs to be a miner of poems to see in its Ethiopias of...

A Favorite Snippet of John Ashbery

  from John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror”   How many people came and stayed a certain time, Uttered light or dark speech that became part of you Like light behind windblown fog and sand, Filtered and influenced by it, until...

Reading Lynn Emanuel

 inside gertrude stein   Right now as I am talking to you and as you are being talked to, without letup, it is becoming clear that gertrude stein has hijacked me and that this feeling that you are having now as you read this, that this is what it feels like...

Joseph Conrad’s “Advice on Writing a Novel”

I. “I have not read this author’s books, and if I have read them I have forgotten what they were about.” These words are reported as having been uttered in our midst not a hundred years ago, publicly, from the seat of justice, by a civic magistrate. The words of our...

Poem by Frank Stanford

I was reading the poetry collection, You, by Frank Stanford today and really liked this poem. I hope you enjoy it. WEARINESS OF MEN My grandmother said when she was young The grass was so wild and high You couldn’t see a man on horseback. In the fields she made...

I adore this poem by Carrie Olivia Adams right now.

CARRIE OLIVIA ADAMS A Mystery Story She would begin by predicting the weather. The first clue is snowflakes. She gathers teeth marks. Flesh torn. Hot. Then cold to the touch. No, the detective thinks. Fabric fibers over ice crystals. Fingernails. This one delivered....