If you have been deciding whether your next read is going to be a novel or a poem, I have the perfect solution for you. Pick up Susana H. Case’s new book, The Damage Done, and the problem’s solved. The Damage Done is a […]
Category Archives: Books That Come My Way
Maria Lisella reads new and published poems
I went to Maria Lisella’s apartment in Queens, a walk from the train, the elevated N. She thoughtfully had prepared a meal for me, soup, bread, cheese, grilled vegetables. Her cooking like her poetry takes what is everyday and elevates it to an exceptionally […]
Julia Knobloch reads from Book of Failed Salvation
Many of the poems in Julia Knobloch’s new chapbook, Book of Failed Salvation, are love poems that are secular, but explore the divine as well. The poet may try, as impossible as it may sound, not only to embrace a lover, but God. God is […]
Dean Kostos reads from Broken Color
In Broken Color the poet looks at art, but the poems are not, to my mind, ekphrastic; the poems are more about the looking than what the looking is looking at, pleasure after thought; they are poems about being, more inside than out. I’ve read […]
Le Pont Mirabeau read by Guillaume Apollinaire and translated by Ron Padgett
The best translation by far that I have come across of Guillaume Apollinaire’s poetry is by Ron Padgett in a book published by the New York Review of Books in 2015 simply titled, Zone, Selected Poems. When Ron Padgett renders Le Pont Mirabeau into […]
Dennis Cooper reads from I Wished
I first met Dennis Cooper in the late 1970s when he visited Philadelphia. He had heard the poetry scene in Philly was hopping and had come to check it out. He read at the Painted Bride if I remember. Afterward I took him for […]
Wanda Phipps reads from Mind Honey
Wanda Phipps with Virlana Tkacz translated a timely play by the Ukrainian poet, Lesia Ukrainka, called Forest Song. Over the summer, a version of the play using other sources as well, A Thousand Suns, was performed by the Yara Arts Group for three nights […]
Lonely Christopher reads from Death & Disaster Series
Death & Disaster Series was written by Lonely Christopher during his early twenties when his mother was dying and shortly after she died, writing poems instead of committing suicide. I too had a hard time surviving my twenties so I can relate. I knew […]
Jenna Cardinale reads from A California
I read with Jenna Cardinale at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn recently. Not only was it great being at a live reading again, but I also enjoyed Jenna’s poetry and asked her then and there if she would read for the blog. So we […]
Digigram by Barbara Henning
Barbara Henning’s new book of poems, Digigram, chronicles a dreary year, the abominable 2016, yet it is full of insights by an aware observer who takes the time to look. These poems are so good, they make the ordinary day to day extraordinary. In […]
Cheryl J. Fish reads from The Sauna Is Full of Maids
As I read The Sauna Is Full of Maids by Cheryl Fish, I was constantly reminded of friendship. There are countries I’ve visited that became my friend, Mexico and China come quickly to my mind; those two countries and I shared days as only […]
Cliff Fyman reads from Taxi Night
In the city that never sleeps, Cliff Fyman drove a cab all night creating poetry from what he heard his passengers say. I’ve enjoyed hearing these poems over the years. Happily they are finally a book called Taxi Night. I went over to Cliff’s […]
