Category Archives: Poetry

We have planted a burning bush at the base of a smoke bush. We appreciate the horticultural joke even more as the blossoms of the smoke bush appear well before the autumn-turn of foliage sets the burning bush ablaze. Imagine … Continue reading →

Barbara Carey. Undressing the Dark. “weighing it up”. This poem begins with a detail that within a few lines morphs into a huge size. One fingernail from the Statue of Liberty weighs 100 lbs., a little less than me. And … Continue reading →

Roo Borson describes in “Kensington Market,” collected in A Sad Device, in a quasi-hallucinogenic fashion, bunches on display. They glow, violet marbled with green, and the bees dance over them like boxers in a ring. They are nipples engorging before … Continue reading →

Grief. One gets it. When one writes one gets grief. One of its sources is teachers. Take “Anecdotal Evidence” by Daryl Hine in A Reliquary and Other Poems. The anecdote in question is set up by reflection upon the nature … Continue reading →

Lunar meditations that have me shivering at the modest repetition of the word “more” and thrilled that intimations of mortality provide occasions for such eloquence along the slippery spine of syntax. Because, once looked at lit By the cold reflections … Continue reading →

The “Instructions to My Mother” become by poem’s end directives to the reader implying some reflection on their own aging. We are invited to avoid pondering about decay and focus on a fine patina. And never tell me I’m ‘getting … Continue reading →

Home is always borrowed. As nomads camp where others camped before, As mice find winter digs under the stair, As this year’s swallows build their summer nest Among the raftered nurseries of the past; As mosses lodge in crevices of … Continue reading →