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Yesterday, Brian and I cohosted, along with our friend Erik Noonan, the first of what we hope will be many outdoor pairings of poetry and visual art.

Menelaus and Helen IHot through Troy’s ruin Menelaus broke To Priam’s palace, sword in hand, to sate On that adulterous whore a ten years’ hateAnd a king’s honour. Through red death, and smoke,And cries, and then by quieter ways he strode, Till the still innermost chamber fronted him. He swung his sword, and crashed into [...]

So there’s this urban legend I heard once, about this woman who’s in an ice cream shop when she notices Jack Nicholson is standing next to her. She plays it cool, completes the ice-cream-for-money exchange, and heads outside — only to discover that she no longer has her ice cream with her. As she’s standing [...]

1. Storyteller, by Kate Wilhelm: to my right, near my elbow. I’m wishing I’d reread it before submitting my application to Clarion. I’m worried I didn’t make it absolutely clear how much I need me some writing instruction right now — I’m all atmosphere and no plot these days. 2. Getting Started as a Freelance [...]

5. Light and Shade: New and Selected Poetry, by Tom Clark Vagabondage Summer nightklang of stars inner acoustic water diamonds aroundthe oars

3. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, and other stories, by Suzanna Clarke There were horned heads, antlered heads, heads carapiced like insects’ heads, heads as puckered and soft as a mouldy orange; there were mouths pulled wide by tusks, mouths stretched out into trumpets, mouths that grinned, mouths that gaped, mouths that dribbled; there were [...]

So the year is drawing to a close, and, never one to pass up the opportunity to reccommend books, I thought I’d list my ten favorites. In the interest of imposing rules (so as not to range all over as I am wont to do), I limited myself to books published in the last year. [...]

Actually, I’m rather enjoying the rain. But, gah! has it rained a lot the past few days, that chill-bone, tree-stripping rain particular to November. Today was just so chilly and wet, which made the poem we read for Keats class seem as if it were written for an entirely different season (and to be fair, [...]

One of the first things I do when I find myself at someone’s house is start poking through their bookshelves. Partly it’s curiousity about the bookshelf-owner — do they like Jane Austen? Do they own a copy of The Story of O? And part of it is that I’m just plain addicted to reading. I [...]