THE ART OF JACOB LAWRENCE ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Univ. of California Press

    2009

COPY MACHINE MANIFESTOS ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Brooklyn Museum, Phaidon

    2024

LISA TUTTLE ~

 

R E A D   M E

   NYRB 2023

A CONTINUING EDUCATION ~

 

J O H N   W E L L S

Mr. Wells in 2011. When he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he decided not to undergo treatment. “He accomplished what he set out to do,” a former colleague said.Credit...

Photo ~ Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

THOREAU AND THE LANGUAGE OF TREES ~

 

W A L D E N

THOREAU AND THE LANGUAGE OF TREES

   2019

Douglas Brinkley with Henry David Thoreau

SUN RA TONIGHT ~

 

Sun Ra, Singles,

    The Definitive Collection 1932-1991

SPRING BACKROAD CHALKIE ~

 

Backroad Chalkie

Spring 2025

LEYLA MCCALLA TONIGHT ~

 

      Smithsonian Folkways

STALKING THE ATOMIC CITY ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Astra House 2022

DARRYL PINCKNEY ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Farrar Straus Giroux

    2019

JOHN FARRIS ~

 

Skunk

The pot I'm

smoking now

smells like

Armpits after sex (

not with you

of course). You

always tell me

to go to hell. (this

may be the

last time we

see each other.) Where

I will lie is where

I say I loved

you more than this.

Verse

some-

thing's out

there—aft (her

the uni-

verse). The verse

is yet.

Call It

Tobacco

cotton

sugar in

Louisiana

shirts

made of gingham

and slaves

after

and the crack

of what twang of what

tight strings what

on earth under

the sun nothing mugs

but time

for the

load coffee

is like that double

time to

the old swing

No Joke

dragging myself

through 3rd street

& across avenues

depends on the kindness

pf strangers, cars, trucks, bicycles

refuse to run me over. The other

day a bus stopped just short

of a crutch at a curb I was

hanging precariously from

& swung out to miss me, it was

an old man who

was getting on that alerted

the driver & a young hoodie

that grabbed my pack: i

thought he was going to run, but he didn't.

"Watch out pop!" he said, solicitously, &

never asked me for

a quarter. Maybe more

people should be crippled: even cops.

_____________________

John Farris

Last Poems

Archway Editions 2025

DON'T WORRY BABY (BRIAN WILSON) ~

 

B R I A N   W I L S O N

June 20, 1942, in Inglewood, Calif., ~ 2025

TONIGHT SOLO MONK ~

 

   1964

ELAINE EQUI ~

Weather Vane

If only I had one,

I'd keep it for a pet.

Let it perch on the roof

tethered in the wind,

warbling a tinny,

whirring song.

Let the body of the house

sag beneath its talons,

go limp as it lifts,

it and us up — up.

Gilded bird,

crowing at midnight,

pecking at the grain

of stars.

________________

Elaine Equi

Out of the Blank

Coffee House Press, 2025

THE MAKING OF SYLVIA PLATH ~

 

R E A D   M E

      University Press of Mississippi

      2024

THE WHITE LADDER ~

NIMS PURJA CLIMBED  THE FOURTEEN EIGHT-THOUSANDERS IN THE WORLD

IN SIX MONTHS AND SIX DAYS

R  E  A  D    M E 

    Norton  2025

SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW ~

 

S  O  M  E  T  H  I  N  G

am En

ROBERT NIGHTHAWK ~

 

STEVE CROPPER TONIGHT ~

 

Stax Music

Booker T & the MGs

etc.

Thiago Ávila ~ Madleen, the Freedom Flotilla ship sailing to Gaza ~

 

      Democracy NOW!

HOW THE WORLD FAILED TO STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA~

 

Language is damaged when demands to stop killing civilians are 'antisematic', when an army that dehumanizes its enemies is 'moral', when an enterprise of obliteration is a 'riposte', when a military operation openly conducted against Palestinian civilians is the 'Israel-Hamas war'. Thinking is suffocated when debates are prevented, lectures banned and exhibitions cancelled, when the police enter institutions of higher education and prosecutors are imposed to ensure orthodoxy. An oppressive atmosphere of suspicion and accusation has endangered freedom of speech.

— Didier Fassin 

R E A D   M E

    Verso, 2025

JANINE POMMY VEGA WAY! ~

 

THE LOVES OF MY LIFE SAYETH EDMUND WHITE ~

 

R E A D   M E

       Bloomsbury 2025

THE HOUSE OF WOLFE ~

 

R E A D   M E

     The Mysterious Press

      2015

ROCK FLIGHT ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Giramondo Poetry

      New Directions Publishing

STEINBERG, ALL IN LINE ~

R E A D   M E 

    New York Review of Books

    2024

WHEN I GO AWAY (MAVIS STAPLES/LEVON HELM) ~

 

Recorded at Levon Helm Studios June 3rd, 2011

BARBARA DANE ~

 

HOW BIRDS FLY ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Firefly Books

    2024

RON PADGETT ~

from  Pink Dust

          ________________

I shovel a path

from the porch to the truck

and another around the house

to the back door, stopping

to see if I'm one

of those geezers

who have heart attacks

while shoveling snow,

and when I'm finished

I'm not. Look

at all that snow out there

going down the hill

as far as the eye can see.

=

In my sleep I caressed you

and when I woke up

I caressed the memory

of the dream.

I never caressed you

in "real life."

I never even wanted to

though I was close

to liking the idea of caressing you.

If I had caressed you

I would remember it,

which is what I did last night.

=

I almost feel sorry

for the human thumb,

off to the side, alone,

and not looking much like

its four nrothers and sisters—

the real fingers.

They invite the thumb

to help them when they need it,

but otherwise keep their distance.

Just across the way, though,

there's another thumb.

In the old days

the two used to twiddle.

Now they're happy enough

just knowing they're both there.

=

It's satisfying to eat

exactly the right amount

of, say, French toast

and then stop,

for you have just

achieved a moral victory

in the middle

of the flow of time,

and though it slows away,

this victory,

you have its aftertaste,

along with butter

and genuine Vermont maple syrup

from a tree not far down the road.

=

A haiku went up into a tree

and sat there on a limb

it had just made up.

__________________________

Ron Padgett

Pink Dust

New York Review of Books, 2025