I'm teaching Sharon Olds tomorrow at Polytech, so this week I've been re-immersing myself in her work. I'd forgotten how good it is. You remember the sex, the violence, the big-ticket melodrama of her relationship with her father. But I'd forgotten how much she writes of sheer physical joy – how good it feels to …
Tuesday Poem – “Ukritye”, by Mario Petrucci
(Chernobyl, 1986) Even the robots refuse. Down tools. Jerk up their blocked heads, shiver in invisible hail. Helicopters spin feet from disaster, caught in that upwards cone of technicide – then ditch elsewhere, spill black running guts. Not the Firemen. In rubber gloves and leather boots they walk upright, silent as brides. Uppers begin to …
Continue reading "Tuesday Poem – “Ukritye”, by Mario Petrucci"
There are Some Books I am Just Not Meant to Have
I think that the Gods of Books have been watching me again. Or possibly it's the Book Gods' mischievous little brother – the one who makes sure that the last copy of the book you desperately want is being held by someone who's obviously more interested in a long gossip with someone else just as …
Continue reading "There are Some Books I am Just Not Meant to Have"
Tuesday Poem – “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”
Earth hath not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; …
Continue reading "Tuesday Poem – “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”"
Tuesday Poem – “Sir Walter Raleigh to His Son”
Three things there be that prosper up apace And flourish, whilst they grow asunder far, But on a day, they meet all in one place, And when they meet, they one another mar; And they be these: the wood, the weed, the wag. The wood is that which makes the gallow tree; The weed is …
Continue reading "Tuesday Poem – “Sir Walter Raleigh to His Son”"
A Dark Feathered Art 