Apr 24
1. I never intended to live in Ohio again in the first place. After my first divorce, and all the ensuing debacles; a rehab here, probation there, a dab or two of homelessness, or years of barely clinging to a roof over my head, and I found myself drunk and alone a lot, watching the …
Apr 21
Parallel Lives Every city has one, a block God forgot, some unofficial war zone, demilitarized, but alive and active with all the usual suspects cops roust on periodic missions to clean up after some particularly rowdy disturbance, something so embarrassing, around election day, even the mayor is moved to act. After the votes have been …
Apr 20
Heather Dorn, How to Play House, Roadside Press, 2023, 116 pages $15 “Heather Dorn is a real mom with real life issues. She’s more Journal of a Mad Housewife than Kate Middleton, though she’s not a stuck at home mom going crazy with her kids but a PhD in English Literature who teaches at the …
Apr 17
Because, Brian I liked you at first, because your dad fixed a flat on my mom’s Pontiac in his robe, and because of your black jelly bean eyes and big-toothed laugh, and because you almost almost rubbed my thigh. But I bought off-the-shoulder homecoming velvet for someone else, because of your seaweed smell, because of …
Apr 16
abandoned by all things my brother phones late at night, he’s been drinking again, asking if I might write a few poetic lines in honor of our dead father so Richie G can temporarily immortalize the words on his forearm below the half-finished angel, a tribute to a dad he vaguely remembers from his early …
Apr 14
In Ain’t These Sorrows Sweet, Lauren Scharhag invites readers into her hand, lifts us across space and time, and offers us the nourishment of memory cached in beans and light, in tomatoes and rosaries and barbacoa. She illuminates the crossroads of time and history and inheritance as they culminate in our own mouths and are …
Apr 10
Today, I finished reading Ain’t These Sorrows Sweet and what a journey we have been on, through dark places, wonderfully described: “Burned out encampments in railroad yards give no scent of myrrh.” This book contains beautiful, heart-wrenching narrative poems which it has been a tearstained pleasure to read. I realised that the book was a …
Apr 03
‘Innocent Postcards’: Progressive poetry reflects 20th-century politics and culture by Anthony Mangos, People’s World Author-poet-musician John Pietaro has been a constant, positive force in the ongoing progressive culture of New York City. Hailing from Brooklyn, Pietaro’s passions are equal parts literature, music, workers’ rights, and social activism. He founded the Dissident Arts and Brecht Lives! …
Mar 28
First published at: https://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/q-a-with-countercultural-writer-interviewer-and-editor-leon-horto Interview by Michael Limnios Q&A with countercultural writer, interviewer, and editor Leon Horton; editor of book Gregory Corso: Ten Times a Poet Posted by Michael Limnios Blues Network on March 28, 2024 at 8:30am “Where would we be without it? Literature helps us to understand the world, to see and feel and …
Mar 26
review of THESE ARE THE PEOPLE IN YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD by Jordan Trethewey, originally published in Miramichi Reader at https://miramichireader.ca/2024/03/these-are-the-people-in-your-neighbourhood-by-jordan-trethewey/ These Are the People In Your Neighbourhood by Jordan Trethewey March 25, 2024 by Mala Rai Jordan Trethewey’s tribute to the people of Fredericton, a city I have never been to, travelled nearly 5400km westward for a curious …
