Last night F and I went to see Albert Goldbarth give a reading at Swarthmore. It was rainy, and we were tired from our busy weekend, but we went anyway! And we were very glad we did. Besides, it gave me a chance to wear my new raincoat and wellies ( Read more... )

Last night I went to see Rita Dove give a poetry reading at Swarthmore. I'd seen Ms. Dove before, when she gave the keynote speech at AWP a few years back, but I don't remember being really impressed with her then. Last night, however, she was awesome. It was (obviously) a much smaller venue, full of passionate undergrads--the reading was ( Read more... )

Many of you will remember Katherine Mansfield because I made you read her short story "Miss Brill" a while back. It was the story about the old lady with her fox stole at the concert in the park, and if you read it you are probably throwing things at the screen right now and cursing me for making you think about it because it was so heartbreaking ( Read more... )

I am completely in love with this poem: I Am an Asshole, by Lynn Behrendt. (If you work in the kind of place where you shouldn't have words like "asshole" plastered 50 times over your screen, then it is not work-safe, so please read it when you get home, because it so deserves to be read, even by people whose thing is not poetry; even if your ( Read more... )

I finally finished this today. I can't even remember when I started it--it's F's copy, so... maybe July or August? It's just been sitting on my windowsill for months. Sigh. Anyway, I think Mary Oliver is pretty delightful. She loves trees and writes so beautifully about the natural world and our place in it. Not a whole lot in this book ( Read more... )

(This post's title could also be "I have the awesomest boyfriend in the world", because he just emailed me this sweetness out of nowhere and I almost cried ( Read more... )

I absolutely adore this poem. Fritz sent it to me, proving that he knows me very, very well. I especially love how peaceful the speaker is. It's beautiful.

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Mummy of a Lady Named Jemutesonekh XXI Dynastyby Thomas James ( Read more... )

I'm taking a little class on Rumi at my church, and I'm really enjoying it. Here's a poem we talked about tonight ( Read more... )

Read this one yesterday too. I was feelin' the poetry. I found out about this book at the Greensboro Review reading at AWP in Atlanta last year--the book had just come out and Patrick Phillips read some of the poems. I was so impressed I hung on to the name of the book, and snagged it (on sale!) at AWP this year. Phillips's new book has just ( Read more... )

A gift from F, I think. I've been working my way through this for several months now, a poem here or there, but all of a sudden yesterday I just got into it.

My favorite from this book:( A poem! )