© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
A few months ago, via email, Scott Hightower sent me his poem, “The Young Man Holding an Empty Glass,” accompanied by a nineteenth century painting and his translation in Spanish. Last week in the mail—or was it two weeks ago?—Ron … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
Times flies and is truly transcendent. Several months ago, in a colder time, I went over to Jersey City where Annabel Lee currently lives in a beautiful apartment that is yet too small to contain all she does and is. … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
I missed Daniel W.K. Lee’s reading at the Bureau when he was in town. I emailed him and asked if he would read some poems from his new book, Anatomy of Want, so I could share them on my blog. … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
I read The Mother/Child Papers in one sitting. Perhaps it was so accessible because I was sitting by the Atlantic Ocean, at the same time of year as the book begins, in early May, but decades later. I like … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
With some books of poetry, you can jump in anywhere, but with Marcella Durand’s To husband is to tender, I would say, “Start at the beginning, and let the book draw you in.” Contemplation, what it means to be … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
Common comfortable places become uncommon and uncomfortable, common words whose meanings you thought you knew are a puzzle in pieces, and then the puzzle in pieces becomes a thought you know. You see and then you don’t. Some poems … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
If you want to give words to every moment, every thought and sight worth jotting down, you need a notebook though any scrap of paper will do. Bill Kushner was a poet I remember fondly who always had a … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
I’m in awe of many poets, and with that being said, I have to say I’m especially in awe of Lonely Christopher. “How does he have the time to do everything he does?” Writer, curator, critic, publisher, editor and director, … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
I like narrative poetry so I always look forward to a new book by Greg Masters. The Complete Thoughts of Greg Masters is full of stories the poet often recalls from his own life; and it could be something … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
Life, we all come to realize, even if we never read Heraclitus, is in constant motion, which is one reason why I walked over to 2 Horatio Street last Monday to record Elaine Sexton reading from Drive, her new … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
Some poets become so famous that other poets who are not famous, and there are many more of those, think that something must be wrong with a poet who rises so high in her own lifetime that even people … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
Sandpiper The roaring alongside he takes for granted,and that every so often the world is bound to shake.He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake. The beach hisses like … Continue reading