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Book of the Month: Foster by Claire Keegan

2025-04-10T16:40:59-04:00

Critical Evaluation "We critics are guilty of emphasizing, ad nauseam, the novella’s size. Our epithets (“short,” “slim,” “brief”) imply slightness, something lesser than, as if we owe the reader a trigger warning: not a novel. "But who doesn’t want to finish a book over the course of a weekend? "For those of you who do, the Irish writer Claire Keegan’s beautiful new novella, “Foster,” is no less likely to move you than any heaping 400-page tome you’ll read this year. "The narrator is a young girl in rural Ireland who is sent by her parents to live with the Kinsella family [...]

Book of the Month: Foster by Claire Keegan2025-04-10T16:40:59-04:00

A Poem for You: Magnitude and Bond by Cortney Lamar Charleston

2025-04-03T16:47:45-04:00

Magnitude and Bond Cortney Lamar Charleston     after Gwendolyn Brooks that which is betwixt us of the lampooned lips and noses indissoluble as blood impassioned by a serene swatch of sky— envy of the blessing of birds       and      the divine shadow cast to provide protective canvas for our bones of calcified light the chains that wore us in the fashion of diamond-studded pendants and       the names that the ocean omitted from history with a wave envy of the privilege of birds       and       the low-hung cumulus carried in baskets through the blistering heat by blistered hands the wade into waters as stoic as windows during sudden [...]

A Poem for You: Magnitude and Bond by Cortney Lamar Charleston2025-04-03T16:47:45-04:00

A Poem for You: Author’s Prayer, by Ilya Kaminsky

2025-04-16T14:55:23-04:00

Author’s Prayer ILYA KAMINSKY   If I speak for the dead, I must leave this animal of my body,   I must write the same poem over and over, for an empty page is the white flag of their surrender.   If I speak for them, I must walk on the edge of myself, I must live as a blind man   who runs through rooms without touching the furniture.   Yes, I live. I can cross the streets asking “What year is it?” I can dance in my sleep and laugh   in front of the mirror. Even sleep is [...]

A Poem for You: Author’s Prayer, by Ilya Kaminsky2025-04-16T14:55:23-04:00

A Poem for You: The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry

2025-04-16T14:52:38-04:00

The Peace of Wild Things Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest [...]

A Poem for You: The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry2025-04-16T14:52:38-04:00

A Poem for You: The Owl by Gia Anansi-Shakur

2025-04-03T16:42:12-04:00

The Owl Gia Anansi-Shakur     after Louise Glück’s “October” Violence has changed me something beautiful worldly, not comfortable living in a mouth I’ve long made habit of pulling off my skin by the forearm at night joining the arteries of lapping tongues and hardened wounds. I’ve found joy meditating on the quality of my self served stigmatas fracturing the columns of holy books An owl opens its mouth a church bell climbs out akimbo She has learned to tightrope in the dark Copyright © 2025 by Gia Anansi-Shakur. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 3, 2025, by the Academy of American [...]

A Poem for You: The Owl by Gia Anansi-Shakur2025-04-03T16:42:12-04:00

Word of the Week: imprimatur (ĭm-prə-MÄ-tōōr)

2025-04-03T16:22:37-04:00

imprimatur (ĭm-prə-MÄ-tōōr) Definition (Noun) Commendatory license, sanction. In Context "The committees wanted to address these complex issues, but, given the political and economic ramifications of market reform, they needed the SEC's imprimatur on the legislation." Anne M. Khademian, The SEC and Capital Market Regulation: The Politics of Expertise, 1992.

Word of the Week: imprimatur (ĭm-prə-MÄ-tōōr)2025-04-03T16:22:37-04:00

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (2018)

2025-04-07T13:54:08-04:00

Book of the Month:The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (2018) Critical Evaluation "And yet despite her acid critique of writers and their discontents, or perhaps because of her dead-on depiction, Nunez has won over the literary world with 'The Friend.' The novel, an acerbic but often poignant exploration of love, friendship, death, grief, art and literature, received this year’s National Book Award for fiction and drew euphoric reviews from critics, who hailed it as a subtle, unassuming masterpiece. (Writing in The Times, Dwight Garner called Nunez 'a crisply philosophical and undervalued novelist.') "The rapturous reception has stunned Nunez, 67, who has been quietly writing [...]

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (2018)2025-04-07T13:54:08-04:00

A Poem for You: A Wartime Dream by Lesyk Panasiuk

2025-04-03T16:27:25-04:00

A Wartime Dream Lesyk Panasiuk translated from the Ukrainian by Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky Emptiness lives inside a radio  and newspapers are now printed without letters. I walk up the street but I don’t (do I?) hear my own steps. I notice an acquaintance across the street, and call out to him to say  hello, but bullets of silence fly from my mouth. I start shouting with my hands but my fingers are bent, crooked at my fingers. But it’s just (or is it?) a dream, just a dream which pretends it is an emptiness, inside a radio.      ТІЛЬКИБ СОН Радіо всередині пусте і чорне і газети тепер друкують без букв Іду вулицею але не чую власних кроків помічаю знайомого з іншого боку вулиці і гукаю його щоб привітатись але з мого рота вилітають кулі мовчання які чомусь не схожі на кулі тиші Починаю кричати йому руками але мої пальці вигнуті мої пальці криві й покручені Та це тільки сон тільки сон   [...]

A Poem for You: A Wartime Dream by Lesyk Panasiuk2025-04-03T16:27:25-04:00

Word of the Week: sere (sîr)

2025-04-03T16:01:27-04:00

Word of the Week sere (sîr) Definition (Adjective) Dry, withered. In Context "In high mountains night visibility is intermediate between that of the humid coast and the sere desert." Raymond B. Cowles, Desert Journal: A Naturalist Reflects on Arid California, 1977.

Word of the Week: sere (sîr)2025-04-03T16:01:27-04:00

A Poem for You: Ways to Measure Trees by MaKshya Tolbert

2025-02-11T10:40:52-05:00

Ways to Measure Trees MaKshya Tolbert         Level II: Basic Assessment All my life I was a hammer: I struck at everything I touched. Then I commit a few Thursdays to trees. I am not gentle but I could be. Around one tree, I try my basic circling steps, tap the tree’s bark with my mallet and listen for the difference: alive? dead? alive? dead? alive? still alive? I muscle coils of clay and learn the same lesson again and again– could be clay trees family trees literal trees: I hear the precarious things. I go phone-my-forester asking [...]

A Poem for You: Ways to Measure Trees by MaKshya Tolbert2025-02-11T10:40:52-05:00

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