© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
If you happen to be in New England, keep your eyes and ears open for Charles Coe reading from his new book of poems, Purgatory Road. With an assuring sonorous voice that makes you want to listen, there is both … Continue reading
© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… Yes, we are all going to die. But some of us are going to die sooner than others. And when that happens to you, what are you going to do about it? Yesterday, I read an essay in the … Continue reading
© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
I got to know Donna Fleischer through her online website, word pond, where she shares the work of other poets, artists, and musicians, both dead and alive, one big happy family. Because word pond has been a vital supporter of … Continue reading
© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… I became aware of Marc Chagall when I was a teenager in the 1960’s. Many of the artists I discovered then were still alive like Dali, Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Marcel Duchamp, and Marc Chagall too, whose brides, goats, and … Continue reading
© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… Friday I walked through Central Park with two old friends. We began on 96th Street and walked along the stream and little lakes on our way to the Conservatory Garden. There was a slight drizzle for about twenty minutes, … Continue reading
© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
The work Jim Feast did in his early twenties in Chicago, (a strange awakening of light that takes the place of dawn), is a testimony to the grit and will of a young man who wants to be a poet. … Continue reading
© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… In Brooklyn near the Gowanus Canal, Gerald Wagoner has been hosting a popular reading series for several years now that he calls The Persistance of Cormorants; so it was only fitting that, with the publication of his debut chapbook, … Continue reading
© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
Since the beginning of March, the first thing Akram does when he wakes up is to reach for his sketchbook and pens and with the first sip of coffee—First thought, best thought—he begins. Here are a few of his morning … Continue reading
© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
When Robert Johnson recorded “Walking Blues” in 1936, he was working from a version Son House, not the Devil, had taught him. And the great Son House himself was borrowing from a Blues tradition that began after the Civil War … Continue reading
© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
I have been enjoying the work of Neddi Heller for many years. There is always something there. Her painting, “Bird of Paradise, Bird of Destruction,” is twenty years old. It was recently shown, for the first time, in a show. … Continue reading
© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
On Valentine’s Day, I handed out my haiku postcard to my High Beginner ESL class at LaGuardia Community College. I had been teaching the class since October, and this being the second semester, some new students were added. Jing Yi, … Continue reading
© 2023 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
At KGB in NYC not too long ago, I enjoyed hearing Dipika Mukherjee read from her newest book, Dialect of Distant Harbors, and wanted to get her on the blog. She had just flown in from Chicago and was flying … Continue reading