EDUARDO HALFON ~

 

R E A D    M E

Bellevue Literary Press

2024

ZIM NGQAWANA ~

 

℗ 1998 Gallo Record Company

SANDRA McPHERSON ~

Sandra McPherson

1943—2024

JANA PRIKRYL ~

 

Anonymous

Just in front of the porch steps, on a flat stone

that appears partially tucked under the porch,

a ficus in a clay planter. It produces

strange sounds. The silence that comes dressed

in not the past but conditional tense

may be quietest, it's endured the most.

_________________________

Jana Prikryl

No Matter

Tim Duggan Books, 2019

PAPA GEORGE LIGHTFOOT ~

 

RECONSTRUCTION OF ZBIGNIEW HERBERT ~

 

So Much

How hard

to save a person

who loves

I always feel

your slender arm

heavy as a body

It runs through my fingers

like water

Your breath

my pallor

and care

How hard

to save a person

who trusts

I bend over your sorrow

I lift the weight of love

I lift you from earth in my arms

carry you on my lips

give you up to prayer

On the Repatriation of

Bruno Jasienski's Remains

When the thaw reached

the Far North

the poet's body emerged

from under the ice cap

his grave so shallow

body only half buried

a daisy in one ear

a little grass in the other

but taken all in all

he was in very good shape

so they freshened him up

wiped the mold from his lips

blew on him and slapped him

doused him with jasmine

farewell dear poet

off to your fatherland

his fatherland is happy

the academy overjoyed

no one says they killed him

they all say: he came back

they scream and shout

the crowd lifts him up

so you see my old pal

no need for living legs

at the author's evening

obedient comrades

whip him into shape

make blustery threats

and attached to his strings

the poet steps up to the mic

a little stiff but confident

he wants to read his poems

His hand in his wig

his voice makes the megaphone squeal

he grunts and gestures

and they all say: he's so alive

the poem ends with a shriek

he raises a hand and screams

the string snaps and the arm

drops woodenly on the table

so as to erase the image

the cry goes up: long life

and presidium and poet

go off to have a drink

his wife is at the reception

but she behaves differently

when looking at her husband

she sobs into a handkerchief

champagne caviar oysters

pineapples and wine

poor man no more will you

drink water or feed on clay

but the poet eats nothing

doesn't even clink glasses

pale he goes off to one side

begins to wind his shroud

but no one notices this

alcohol flows like a stream

and it's only near dawn

they yell: he's gone and died again

________________________

Zbigniew Herbert

Reconstruction of the poet

Ecco, 2024

Translated by Alissa Valles

AGNES VARDA ~

 

R E A D   M E

     A new biography surveys the prolific and pioneering

 career of the filmmaker Agnès Varda.

Norton 2024

DUBRAVKA UGRESIC ~

 

R E A D   M E

&

M O R E

A Muzzle for Witches

University of Rochester

2024

CATHY MERRICK ~

Cathy Merrick, Advocate for Indigenous People in Canada,

 Dies at 63

Ms. Merrick during a candlelight vigil outside a Winnipeg courthouse in April during the trial of a white man accused of killing four Indigenous women. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid tribute to her after she collapsed while speaking to reporters on Sept. 6. Credit...Sebastien St-Jean/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

C A T H Y   M E R R I C K 

CLIFFORD BURKE ~

 

     Desert Rose Press

     2024

JELLY ROLL BLUES ~

 

R E A D   M E

Censored Songs & Hidden Histories

THE BOOK AT WAR ~

 

R E A D   M E

Basic Books 2023

SUPREME CIDER DONUT ~

 

This is a supreme cider donut

melt in your mouth donut

the clincher of a September day

after picking blueberries at

Green Mountain Orchards in

Putney, Vermont ~

No promo — they don't

know us and we don't

know them — even if

we have been scrambling

their bountiful hillsides

 picking there for decades,

the best cider donut

we have ever had —

thank you!

    ______________________

NATIVE NATIONS ~

 

R E A D   M E

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF "THE DEBATE"

 

      Backroad Chalkie

     September 2024

KEITH JARRETT ~

 

1977

featuring his 'American Quartet' ensemble which included Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, and Paul Motian. 

 …

TRANSCENDENT ~

 

H E A R   M E

   Melville House 2023

PAUL BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND (1967) ~

 

   Elektra Records

  1967  

KUBRICK ~

 

R E A D   M E

Stanley Kubrick on the set of the film Barry Lyndon (1975)

IS THERE GOD AFTER PRINCE? ~

 

R E A D   M E

The University of Chicago Press

2023

WOMAN LIFE FREEDOM ~

 

R E A D    M E

      Saqi Books, 2023

CLIFFORD GIBSON~

 

RUSS TAMBLYN ~

 

R E A D   M E

Black Stone 2024

ANTHONY HECHT ~

 

R E A D   M E

I'll read a ton of poets before I sit down again with Anthony Hecht's poems,

but I have read him, and this biography performs a miracle raising the ante

on a somewhat dragged through the dust poet. Give me Stevens, of course,

and all by Berryman, Delmore Schwartz, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop

before Hecht, but read this biography — Hecht's literal writing 

and continuing and finally surviving is his poem.

    St. Martin's 2023

JOE HILL LOUIS ~

 

THE FORCED DISPLACEMENT OF THE NORTHERN SAMI ~

 

R E A D   M E

Minnesota 2024

RAJA SHEHADEH ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Other Press, 2024

ALICE NEEL IN THE QUEER WORLD ~

 

R E A D   M E

David Zwimer 2024