New York Review of Books
2024
Tuesday, September 2, 2025
Monday, September 1, 2025
Sunday, August 31, 2025
Saturday, August 30, 2025
JENA OSMAN ~
Anatomy
bread flesh herbs
too course to be eaten parts: heads, feet
pigeons of herbs preparing sharp sauces
causes of unnatural things
irascible
pleasant at first tending to evil guts
in the vinegar fog delight the appetite blind
if cold, ambition marks a mad spark
hot and grievous symptom of prophet vision
wanders all over the body and home in the dark
_____________________
Jena Osman
A Very Large Array, selected poems
Daba 2024
Friday, August 29, 2025
Thursday, August 28, 2025
SHANE McCRAE ~
After My Grandparents
Kidnap Me They Move
To A New Development
The only scenes I know are Scenes
My mother's parents thought to take
Pictures of. Me in the ditch, my mother's father
In the yard before the fence
Was built, before the lawn was fit
-ted to the Earth's face like a face
After a mauling. He is posing like
A hunter in the dirt
He grips a hoe and kneels in the corpse
Called Everywhere. A neighborhood
Is coming. Where an armed man kneels and grins
That man will build a house
In the House From Which
I Was Kidnapped
The pale blinds rise and fall, a gif forever
The blinds move on their own. At first my father
Stands with the string between his fingers, first
And middle, pulling, even after it tears
Into his fingers, tears the first and mid-
dle skin, him pulling, letting go, his blood
Staining the length of the looped string near-
est him. He pulls the string for years
Eventually he backs away from the window
Into the room. He doesn't turn. Now
He watches from a shadow in the room
For a small child to be returned to him
I see him watching from deeper in the shadow
Whenever I look into his eyes. The shadow grows the way a
child grows
I Have Mixed My Labor With the Soil
Back at the old house, the woods, no entry now
How much remains if any of my blood
And skin in the forest up the hill? Unend-
ing the humiliations so small you
Can't talk about them or they stop being true
Such as sound loyal in your head
And do betray you on your tongue. It is my bod-
y still, more mine than when how long ago
I bled at war in the woods with boys I wanted
To like me so I let them hurt me there
I wore a helmet from the army surplus store
Hoping I would be hunted
And shot in the head, hoping I'd hear the BB strike
To squeeze through brambles my own blood made thick
My Mother Was A Dancer
I danced with the boy in the yard, my mother watching us
He held his left hand high, but too far back
As if it had been photographed mid-wave
And frozen by the attentive flash
As if he once had meant to swing it down, and now
Couldn't, a fear I knew and couldn't name
For years, but bodied by my mother's gaze
Gripped it, and wouldn't let it go
He turned to her, and, crying, shouted wasn't she
Going to do anything? My mother's teeth
Parted. But what she said I didn't hear
Again I struck his bleeding eye
____________________
Shane McCrae
The Many Hundreds of the Scent
Farrar, Straus, Giroux 2023
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Monday, August 25, 2025
Sunday, August 24, 2025
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Friday, August 22, 2025
GUITAR CRUSHER TONIGHT ~
Credits Vocals - Guitar Crusher (Sidney Selby) Guitar - Hans-Jörg Müller and Alvin Lee (tracks 1 to 3) Bass - Stephan Wagner Drums - Uli Wagner Keyboards - Linus Wahl Organ - Andre Schnisa (tracks 3 to 5 and 11) Vocals - Siggi Davis (tracks 4, 9 and 10) Piano - Christian Bleiming (track 6) and Christian Rannenberg (tracks 7, 9 and 11) Alto Saxophone - Arno Haas Saxophone - Elmar Schäfer Tenor saxophone - Tyree Glenn, Jr. (track 10) Trumpet - Bernd Hufnagel, Calvin Owens (tracks 3, 5 and 7), Rüdiger Baldauf, Rüdiger Ruf, Thomas Nell and Thomas Vogel Congas - Lenjes Robinson (track 12) Label: in-akustik - INAK 9034 Year: 1995
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Wednesday, August 20, 2025
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Monday, August 18, 2025
Sunday, August 17, 2025
MAHMOUD DARWISH ~
Think of Others
As you prepare your breakfast, think of others
(do not forget the pigeon's food).
As you wage your wars, think of others
(do not forget those who seek peace).
As you pay your water bill, think of others
(those who are nursed by clouds).
As you return home, to your home, think of others
(do not forget the people of the camps).
As you sleep and count the stars, think of others
(those who have nowhere to sleep).
As you express yourself in metaphor, think of others
(those who have lost the right to speak).
As you think of others far away, think of yourself
(say: If only I were a candle in the dark).
__________________________
Mahmoud Darwish
Almond Blossoms & Beyond
TRANSLATED BY MOHAMMAD SHAHEEN
Interlink Books, 2024
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