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Adios, Louise Glück
THE MOUNTAIN by Louise Glück My students look at me expectantly. I explain to them that the life of art is a life of endless labor. Their expressions hardly change; they need to know a little more about endless labor So I tell them the story of Sisyphus, how he was doomed to push a rock up a mountain, knowing nothing would come of this effort but that he would repeat it indefinitely.Read More
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My Review in Pedestal Magazine
Check out my take on Dana Roeser’s new collection in issue 85 of Pedestal Magazine.Read More
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Nothing Is Truer than Truth
More than fifteen years ago I became convinced that the man named William Shakspere, resident of Stratford-upon-Avon and identified since the mid-18th century as the author William Shakespeare, was not, in fact, the author of the plays and poems. (See a select bibliography at the end of this post.) Then, about a decade ago, I discovered that a movie about the real author—Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford—was in the works.Read More
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On David Giannini’s Mayhap: Selected Brief Poems
No American poet since William Stafford is as quotable as David Giannini. A tendency toward aphoristic piquancy layers and complicates all of his work. It’s not that he rejects simplicity; it’s simply that the world and the mind that perceives it are not simple, and Giannini is committed to complexity as part of his continual reach toward wholeness. Giannini’s new collection (his fourth from Dos Madres Press), Mayhap: Selected Brief Poems, is a fine example his commitment.Read More