: Last, next. 103: Kraft Plus (Berry) 104: Great Lakes (Superior)
: Finished in June Ishion Hutchinson, House of Lords and Commons (FSG 2016) Diane Seuss, Modern Poetry (Graywolf 2024) …
: Volume 8 of my newsletter: incoming!
: My book, Vessels, will not come out until right before the southern Summer solstice. But today, just …
: Finished in May Gwen Nell Westerman, Songs, Blood Deep (Holy Cow! 2023) Jennifer Manthey, The Fight (Trio House …
: Last, next. 102: Signs of Spring (Quaker Ladies) 103: Kraft Plus (Berry)
: Tonight at 7:30 (in about 6 hours), I’m one of the readers at Literary Nights, hosted by my …
: Finished in April Mary Ruefle, Dunce (Flood 2019) Nikki Wallschlaeger, Waterbaby (Copper Canyon 2021) Ada Limón, The …
: Five poems of mine just appeared this morning at talking about strawberries all of the time. Many …
: Another bookmark has turned up. Curiously, this bookstore has the same address as Blue Whale. Now, …
: Finished in March Osip Mandelstam (trns Peter France), Black Earth: Selected Poems & Prose (New Directions 2021) …
: Last, next. 101: Kraft Plus (Wednesday Blue) 102: Signs of Spring (Quaker Ladies)
: Last week, I finally made it to Subtext Books in downtown St Paul for the first time. Absolutely one …
: Finished in February Henry Gould, The Green Radius (forthcoming, Contubernales Press 2024) Carla Sofia Ferreira, A …
: My poem, “Leaving the Story Unfinished,” has just appeared as part Dusie’s long-running Tuesday Poem …
: Last, next. 100: Leap of Faith (4,704c) 101: Kraft Plus (Wednesday Blue)
: —Russell Hoban, Pilgermann (1983) SA4QE
: I exist, said the mirror. What about me? said Kleinzeit. Not my problem, said the mirror. —Russell …
: Finished in January Henry Gould, Stone (Copper Beech Press 1979) Robert Creeley, On Earth: Last Poems & and Essay …
: I wrote the last poems for Vessels in June of 2021. But I feel like I finally finished the book this …
: Last, next. 99: Snowy Evening (15,903) 100: Leap of Faith (4,704c)
: This was long overdue. I deactivated it last November, but turned it back on a few weeks later to …
: My wife and I met thirty years ago today. I was invited over to a friend’s apartment to meet her — …
: I mailed out the first batch of chapbook orders last week, and I’m ready to open it up to people …
: Finished in November Henry Gould, The Green Radius (1–38, 39–72) (WIP 2023) Kyla Houbolt, Surviving Death (Broken Spine …
: Last, next. 98: Harvest (Orleans Reinette Apples) 99: Snowy Evening (15,903)
: Finished in October Jane Huffman, Public Abstract (American Poetry Review 2023) Louise Glück, The Triumph of Achilles …
: Last, next. 97: Autumn Trilogy (Scarlet Oak) 98: Harvest (Orleans Reinette Apples)
: To mark the day her eyes closed and mine stayed open: Polly
: My author copies of This Folded Path have arrived from Ottawa! Now I’m just working out how to take …
: I know it’s spelled W-e-d-n-e-s, but it’s pronounced Weltschmerz.
: Finished in September Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King (Mariner Books 2012) (reread)
: I’m going to the Ren Fest today for the first time in over thirty-five years, and possibly only the …
: My chapbook came out yesterday, and a problem with being an older debut poet is just hitting me. …
: New from above/ground press: my chapbook, This Folded Path.
: I grew up in the ’70s, so I’m having a very hard adjusting to the fact that bald eagle sightings are …
: I’m only now beginning to feel slightly human again after losing a week to the most …
: This is your periodic reminder that I have a newsletter and that now might be a good time to …
: Another bookmark for the series. I just found this in a book I bought during my only visit to …
: Some above/ground author activity…
: Last, next. 96: Nat’l Parks (Yellowstone) 97: Autumn Trilogy (Scarlet Oak)
: I’ve just learned the formidable Otoliths has ended its run after seventy issues. Few lit mags …
: A poem of mine, “Four Lessons” has just appeared in the fabulous Guesthouse. Many thanks to Jane …
: Now might be a good time to sign up for my (infrequent) newsletter, Three Things.
: Last, next. 95: Great Lakes (Huron) 96: Nat’l Parks (Yellowstone)
: Fool. The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty reason. Lear. Because they …
: Finished in June Norman O Brown, Life Against Death (Wesleyan 1959) Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams (Vintage 1986) Red …
: Finished in May Andrew J Angyal, Loren Eiseley (Twayne Publishers 1983) Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail …
: Last, next. 94: Kraft Plus (Wednesday Red) 95: Great Lakes (Huron)
: Another bookmark just resurfaced, this time from Blue Whale in Charlottesville, where I spent some …
: Last, next. 93: Signs of Spring (Ghost Flower) 94: Kraft Plus (Wednesday Red)
: Finished in March Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment (Harper Perennial 1994) Adriaen van der Donck (trns Diederik …
: What? A newsletter? Does the world really need another one of these? Don’t worry! Mine is obscure, …
: Oh look, that’s me reading some poems at the above/ground press 2023 AWP (unofficial) offsite …
: Twenty Years On March 3rd, 2003, this quote by Walter Ong was my first post on a long-dead …
: I have at times heard people, perhaps in an attempt to be clever, point out that the TV show M∗A∗S∗H …
: Oh look, it’s Bandcamp Friday again.
: Finished in February Matthew Gabrielle & David M Perry, The Bright Ages (Harper Perennial 2021)
: Happy 50th to Gravity’s Rainbow.
: Season Cycle We’ve been in our house for nearly eleven months, so we’ve seen almost a full season …
: Last, next. 92: Kraft (graph) 93: Signs of Spring (Ghost Flower)
: Now Playing: Released on this day 41 years ago.
: Let me remind you that it’s always possible that tomorrow, all of Sappho’s poems might turn up …
: When it comes to Covid, I’m starting to feel like a final girl.
: Ah ha! The mystery package arrived yesterday afternoon, two days early. I had managed, eventually, …
: Nothing like receiving a shipment notification for something you bought so long ago, you don’t …
: If the past cannot teach the present and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have …
: She sang the song very softly: I do not like the way you slide, I do not like your soft inside, I …
: Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker: Its some kynd of thing it aint us but yet its in us. Its looking out …
: …swimming, swimming, the eye held by the sun, no sharks in the mind, nothing in the mind. …
: Finished in January Ai, Cruelty (Perseus 1973; Collected Poems Norton 2013) Mary Midgley, Science as Salvation …
: The Children of Tantalus They crave death, they crave sorrow. They fear the future, they fear the past, they fear time. A …
: Last, next. 91: Snowy Evening (15,902) 92: Kraft (graph)
: Finished in December Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising (Collier 1973) (reread)
: A snowy morning, and a snowy day ahead.
: Something just happened and, honestly, it’s taken me a few days for the reality of it to sink …
: I spent the better part of 1992 through 1994 writing thousands of lines in iambic pentameter. Maybe …
: It’s a Wayne Shorter evening.
: “I Am Spartacus!” You know that scene where Faye is mailing letters and she hears “That Thing You Do” on the radio and …
: Discarded email drafts account for probably 99% of everything I’ve ever written in my entire life.
: This morning, my mind is like, um, it’s like, oh what’s the word? Something fancy and cool. And …
: Well. Isn’t that just some of the best news I can’t tell anyone yet.
: Crescent moon through bare branches out my kitchen window this morning, unphotographable.
: Last, next. 90: Pitch Black (lined) 91: Snowy Evening (15,902)
: Laszlo will have to wait. Tomorrow will be beyond imagining.
: Cheer Up, You Melancholy Dane! We just bought our tickets for the Guthrie’s production of Hamlet in …
: The books I brought with me, in case you were curious. (The Midgley is a reread.)
: My wife and I will be out running errands all morning, so — of course — I’ll have three books with …
: Covid test? Negative. Feel like crap? Positive.
: The total lunar eclipse is in turn eclipsed by the solid cloud cover.
: Today, I had to abandon a book on a topic I’ve been obsessed with for many years. The book is …
: Now playing: Esmerine, If Only A Sweet Surrender Be True
: Finished in October Steven Mithen, After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000–5,000 BC (Weidenfeld & Nicolson …
: First Halloween in our new house. Our neighbors say they haven’t had any trick-or-treaters at …
: A Day in the Life. 14 October 2022, 07:30 CDT. Saint Paul, Minnesota. Waking up to the first snow of …
: Seventy-eight years ago today, one of the two men I was named after was murdered by the Nazis. His …
: 🔥 It’s the third night in a row we’ve had a fire in our fireplace since getting it inspected and …
: Finished in September Henry David Thoreau, The Journal: 1837–1861 (NYRB 2009) Lewis Thomas, The Lives of a Cell (Bantam …
: Apparently, some foolish press has committed the grave tactical error of accepting a manuscript of …
: Visiting the parents last week. Remember, death is beautiful when you wear it like a maple.
: Just hanging out downtown with Bob. Positively… Fifth Street? Well, close enough. I’m a few blocks …
: Last, next. 89: Great Lakes (Michigan) 90: Pitch Black (lined)
: Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own: …the beauty of the world which is so soon to …
: Information, Imagination Lewis Thomas, “Information,” The Lives of a Cell: The solitary wasp, …
: John Ruskin: The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell …
: Spinoza (trns Elwes): Men would never be superstitious if they could govern all their circumstances …
: Education in a Republic Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life: Anyone who …
: I found this in a used book I bought recently. The bookstore is still around. (Original series here, …
: Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day (pp 1000–01): “We will buy it all up,” making the expected arm …
: Something I wrote a few years ago: The Magical Powers of a New Shirt: on The West Wing, 9/11, …
: Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: Sam said nothing. The look on Frodo’s face was enough for him; he …
: We attended a truly joyous concert last night. It was an absolutely perfect program for the opening …
: Toni Morrison (via): We have to stop loving our horror stories. Joyce’s Ulysses was rejected …
: Alison Gopnik (via): But here’s Hume’s really great idea: Ultimately, the metaphysical foundations …
: Joseph Brodsky: When hit by boredom, let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom. In …
: Barbara Tuchman, Practicing History: …I take notes on four-by-six index cards, reminding myself …
: Ursula K. Le Guin: The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and …
: Lewis Thomas, “The Long Habit,” in The Lives of a Cell: In a recent study of the reaction to dying …
: Ernie Fontaine, Lodge 49: What’s the use of living forever if you’re all alone on a Sunday.
: Brian Eno: With tools, we crave intimacy. This appetite for emotional resonance explains why users …
: Finished in August Lawrence Kilham, The American Crow and the Common Raven (Texas A&M 1989) Susanne Langer, …
: CG Jung: If there were no imperfections, no primordial defect in the ground of creation, why should …
: Emily & Amelia Nagoski, Burnout: Science is the best idea humanity has ever had. It’s a …
: Always do the more difficult thing. —Wittman Ah Sing (Maxine Hong Kingston, Tripmaster Monkey)
: Cold Mountain (trns Red Pine): disappointed impoverished scholars know the limits of hunger and …
: 🎙️ I’m this week’s guest on Micro Monday podcast series. I know, I know: fifty-four …
: I returned the Netgear router I bought last week. Half the speed of the thing it replaced, dead …
: I just cancelled my Netflix account after being a member for eighteen years. The end of an era.
: Walter Ong, Orality & Literacy: To say writing is artificial is not to condemn it but to praise …
: Octavio Paz, On Poets and Others: Even “having no meaning” is a way of meaning. The absurd is one …
: I’ve been thinking that the most difficult thing to do is convince someone that two things — any two …
: Jim Harrison, The Road Home: With age one loses all sense of the supposed inevitability of art and …
: Adam Zagajewski, A Defense of Ardor: Some authors flog consumerist society with the aid of irony; …
: I stopped in at the used bookstore again today, to sell a box of books — and stumbled on another …
: Helen Waddell, The Wandering Scholars: There is no beginning, this side of the classics, to a …
: GK Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: The poor have been rebels, but they have never been …
: Jorge Luis Borges: A man sets himself the task of drawing the world. As the years pass, he fills …
: Caesura I was just remembering a funny dream I had some time ago. I was in a room in my house (both house …
: Elvis Costello, King of America liner notes (Ryko reissue, 1995): The essential difference between …
: This just turned up in an old book. Later replaced by Borders, which also closed (sometime in the …
: Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow: Don’t forget the real business of war is buying and …
: Virginia Heffernan (via): “Let’s get out of here” addresses itself to the anxiety of an earlier …
: J.A. Baker, The Peregrine: Predators overcome their prey by the exploitation of weaknesses rather …
: Brian Eno: Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will …
: WS Merwin, Introduction to Second Four Books of Poems: …poetry like speech itself is made out of …
: Judith Shklar, Ordinary Vices: Far from being an amoral free-for-all, liberalism is, in fact, …
: J.A. Baker, The Peregrine: To be recognized and accepted by a peregrine you must wear the same …
: I was thinking about the early days of blogging, and remembered an old post from 2003. I reposted it …
: Birthday week acquisitions. Not a bad haul. (Over half were used bookstore serendipities.)
: It’s one thing to find a book signed by the poet in a used bookstore— —but then to notice there’s a …
: Thirty-five years with this machine.
: Phrasing Just now, over my morning coffee, I’ve been listening to an album from the 70s, deep …
: Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow: In one of these streets, in the morning fog, plastered over two …
: Finished in July Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (Milkweed 2013) Lawrence Kilham, On Watching Birds (Chelsea …
: Last, next. 88: Wednesday Blue 89: Great Lakes (Michigan) Starting with Lake Michigan, since I was …
: 🔗 Ken Knabb’s situationist archive is now housed in the Beinecke Library at Yale.
: Some years ago, when I was young and impressionable, a knowledgeable academic said to me, “There are …
: Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities: When human affairs reach, in truth and in …
: Joseph Brodsky: Pushkin called translators “the post-horses of enlightenment.” If we take this …
: “Says I to myself” should be the motto of my journal. It is fatal to the writer to be too much …
: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Questions) 1991
: Finished in June Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (Balantine 1970) Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks (FSG …
: This just turned up in an old book. Long gone. The Aster Café is there now. (Original series here, …
: Do you live in Minnesota? Find out what’s under your house.
: Last, next. 87: Nat’l Parks (Sequoia) 88: Wednesday Blue
: Sharks, Desks, and Roadrunners Earlier today, I reposted this tongue-in-cheek teaser for the fifth and final installment of my …
: Bonus! Now that this rare series has been reissued on DVD, be sure to check out the bonus disc of …
: 1: Never rebroadcast since its original airing, it’s the genre-defying pilot, in which people say …
: 4: In this week’s musical episode, Hal Holbrook, fresh off his Tony award-winning run as the …
: 2: In this exciting episode, groundbreaking in its use of CGI, I answer the question, “What poets …
: 5: It’s the shocking season finale! To raise funds to save our gang’s favorite hang-out from …
: And here is the third post in my ongoing poetry mini interview. In this “very special” episode — …
: In the spring of 2021, I participated in the ongoing — and truly wonderful — Poetry Mini Interview …
: Q: Why was he doubly irritated? A: Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had …
: A poem of mine, Time & Times, has just appeared at the always wonderful Selcouth Station. …
: Finished in May GK Chesterton, Manalive (John Lane 1912) (reread) GK Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday (Penguin …
: Foggy morning after a very stormy night.
: Last, next. 86: Signs of Spring (Contra Costa Goldfields) 87: Nat’l Parks (Sequoia)
: Happy 85th to Thomas Pynchon! I’m not going out today (too much to do at home) so here’s a photo …
: Culture or delusion: the distinction, often, rests on how many people share it.
: My Actor’s Nightmare This is a dream I had in high school. I’d had actor’s nightmares before this, of course …
: Rabbits, thunder, red squirrels.
: After six years on a shelf, my old Olivetti has a room of its own.
: Sleet, grey squirrels, geese.
: “We are difficult. Human beings are difficult. We’re difficult to ourselves, we’re difficult to each …
: Coyote, woodpeckers, bald eagles.
: Learning the Right Thing from the Wrong Person Margaret Renkl, NY Times: …we profoundly …
: Robins, cardinals, red-winged blackbirds.
: We just moved into our house.
: Last, next. 85: Mile Marker (Arrow) 86: Signs of Spring (Contra Costa Goldfields)
: Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for. But don’t hurry the …
: Finished in February Russell Hoban, The Mouse and His Child (Scholastic 1967, 2001) Russell Hoban, The Lion of …
: Last, next. 84: United States of Letterpress (Full Circle Press) 85: Mile Marker (Arrow)
: Finished in January Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary (Yale 2009, 2019) AR Ammons, Sumerian Vistas (Norton …
: A poem of mine, Walls, has just appeared at Autumn Sky Poetry Daily.
: A poem of mine, Demiurge, is available now in Issue 6 of Wine Cellar Press. It’s a hay(na)ku, a …
: Last, next. 83: Snowy Evening (15,901) 84: United States of Letterpress (Full Circle Press)
: Jim Dodge, from the Foreword, The Gary Snyder Reader: The last question came from a young man who …
: Henry Adams, The Education: All New York was demanding new men, and all the new forces, condensed …
: Finished in December Finished in December Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm (Harper & Row 1977) (reread) Robert Karen, …
: Last, next. 82: Pitch Black (lined) 83: Snowy Evening (15,901)
: Finished in November Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King (Mariner Books 2012) (reread)
: Finished in October Nikki Wallschlaeger, Crawlspace (Bloof Books 2017) Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey (Wave …
: Last, next. 81: Autumn Trilogy (Maple) 82: Pitch Black (lined) The orange was just too jarring for …
: I’m pleased that a strange old sonnet of mine has found a home in the newest issue of the excellent …
: Last, next. 80: Trailhead (PCT) 81: Autumn Trilogy (Maple)
: Seventy-seven years ago today, one of the two men I was named after was murdered by the Nazis, his …
: Finished in September Maria Dahvana Headley (trns), Beowulf (MCDxFSG 2020) Thoreau, Faith in a Seed: The Dispersion of …
: I found this in a book I just pulled off the shelf. The website is still live, mostly, but it …
: Last, next. 79: 50 (Grass Stain) 80: Trailhead (PCT)
: Finished in August Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways (Penguin 2013) David Anthony, The Horse, The Wheel, and Language …
: I’ve just finished writing two books. They’re very weird, and probably gibberish, but I suspect …
: Bachelard, The Poetics of Space: If we were to give the imagination its due in the philosophical …
: I found this yesterday in, I’m guessing, the book that I bought there in the spring of 2001. A …
: Last, next. 78: Nat’l Parks (Great Smoky Mtns) 79: 50 (Grass Stain)
: Finished in July Danielle Pafunda, The Dead Girls Speak in Unison (Bloof Books 2017) HD, Trilogy (New Directions …
: “The Light’s Agitation,” a poem sequence I wrote in the late ’90s has just …
: This morning, I went inside a bookstore for the first time since January 2020. I picked up part of …
: A very old poem of mine, called Elegy, was published today in the “inaugural expo” of Cool Rock …
: Finished in June Ursula Andjær Olsen (trns, Katrine Øgaard Jensen), Outgoing Vessel (Action Books 2021) JM Tyree, …
: Last, next. 77: United States of Letterpress (Erin Beckloff) 78: Nat’l Parks (Great Smoky Mtns)
: 🔗 Building Ages in NL “A Dutch data engineer wanted to find out the age of the building his son …
: Laurie Anderson, Spending the War Without You: I have to tell you: in theses lectures, I’m not …
: Finished in May CG Jung, Synchronicity (Princeton 1973, 2010) Kelli Russell Agodon, Dialogues with Rising Tides …
: Last, next. 76: Kraft (graph) 77: United States of Letterpress (Erin Beckloff)
: Finished in April Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones (Shambhala 1986, 2016) (My first reread in maybe 33 years) …
: Variations on the 10-Minute Spill In the months since writing my response to this interview question, I’ve seen several references to …
: Here is the last part of my poetry mini interview. It’s the shocking season finale! To save our …
: The fourth part in my poetry mini interview is up. In this week’s musical episode, Hal Holbrook — …
: Can Poetry Be Taught? (This reply was part of a conversation on Micro.blog in January 2019 about whether poetry is a skill …
: And here is the third post in my ongoing poetry mini interview. In this “very special” episode — …
: Last, next. 75: Letterpress (Genghis Kern) 76: Kraft (graph)
: The second installment in my five-part “poetry mini interview” has just been posted. In this …
: Finished in March Ursula Andjær Olsen (trns, Katrine Øgaard Jensen), Third-Millennium Heart (Action Books 2017) …
: What if you asked me a question and I just asked another question in reply? Or a bunch of questions? …
: Another just surfaced. (Original series here, with subsequent discoveries here.)
: Finished in February Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (Harper & Row 1989) (reread) Mark Wunderlich, God of …
: The last time I was in a bookstore was 55 weeks ago. Since then, I’ve bought every book online, most …
: Last, next. 74: Nat’l Parks (Rainier) 75: Letterpress (Genghis Kern)
:
Chance Operation
The third series didn’t last. After an extremely promising first few days, I discovered the source …
: Chance Operation I started my third chance operation series yesterday. As with the first two, I’m drawing five …
: Finished in January Giusseppe Ungaretti (trns, Geoffrey Brock), Allegria (Archipelago Books 2020) Erin Belieu, Infanta …
: Last, next. 73: Nat’l Parks (Denali) 74: Nat’l Parks (Rainier)
: A poem of mine, Polly, is up at Autumn Sky Poetry Daily. I was especially pleased that the editor …
: Here’s another straggler that just surfaced. (Original series here, with subsequent discoveries …
: Here’s another bookmark that just turned up. I remember it being cluttered and tousled, the sort of …
: Finished In December Louise Glück, The Wild Iris (in Poems 1962–2012, FSG 2012) Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Poem …
: A poem of mine, Thighbones, Clay, is up at Eunoia Review.
: Another entry in the intermittently active Bookmarks series. This is actually a receipt not a …
: Sixty years ago today, one of the two men I was named after — my Opa Nicolaas — dropped dead …
: Finished in November Jennifer L Knox, Crushing It (Copper Canyon 2020) Vievee Francis, Forest Primeval (TriQuarterly …
: Last, next. 72: United States of Letterpress (Starshaped Press) 73: Nat’l Parks (Denali)
: I’m appalled to discover I have a book-length manuscript of poetry written in 2020. How is this …
: A late entry to the Bookmark project. I pulled a book off the shelf just now and stumbled on this: …
: Well, it’s 8:45 on a Sunday night. Time to drink too much wine, revise old poems until they’re …
: My (Small Press) Writing Day Are you looking through the bent-back tulips to see how the other half lives? Well, now you can …
: Finished in October Hergé, Tintin: Cigars of the Pharaoh (Atlantic Little Brown, 1975) (reread) Hergé, Tintin: The Blue …
: How I Build Things Writer’s block is the unwillingness to crawl. — Eve L. Ewing (1) I wasn’t always an early riser, …
: Last, next. 71: Autumn Trilogy (Elm) 72: United States of Letterpress (Starshaped Press)
: A Day in the Life Minneapolis, 05:30 CDT How I begin every morning tea for her coffee and the blank …
: Last, next. 70: Kraft (lined) 71: Autumn Trilogy (Elm)
: Finished: Week of 31 August Elaine Pagels & Karen L King, Reading Judas (Penguin 2007) I’m suspending the …
: Last, next. 69: Nat’l Parks (Acadia) 70: Kraft (lined)
: Finished: Week of 3 August CK Williams, Repair (FSG 2000) Arthur Sze, The Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese (Copper …
: Finished: Week of 27 July Brenda Hillman, Pieces of Air in the Epic (Wesleyan 2005) Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret …
: Finished: Week of 13 July Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto (Picador, 2009) Colin Woodard, Union: The Struggle to Forge …
: Finished: Week of 6 July Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan (Random House, 1995) This was my first reread of The Origin of …
: Last, next. 68: Mile Marker (Deer) 69: Nat’l Parks (Acadia) The Acadia is yar.
: Finished: Week of 22 June Daryl Sanders, That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound (Chicago Review Press, 2019)
: Finished: Week of 15 June Italo Calvino (Brock, trns), Six Memos for the Next Millennium (Mariner, 2016) Colin Woodard, …
: Finished: Week of 8 June Robert M Thorson, The Boatman: Henry David Thoreau’s River Years (Harvard, 2017) CG Jung (R&C …
: Last, next. 67: Wednesday Green 68: Mile Marker (Deer)
: Finished: Week of 26 May Over the last few weeks, I have finally managed to begin focusing on reading in a sustained way …
: Perloff’s Blurb Marjorie Perloff’s blurb on the back cover of Mark Scroggins’ The Mathematical Sublime is an …
: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers. —Thomas …
: Last, next. 66: Coastal (Chesapeake) 67: Wednesday Green
: Six Zoom Meetings Before Lunch on self-care, timelessness, and boundaries I watched a few episodes of The West Wing recently. I …
: Finished: Week of 6 Apr I haven’t managed to finish reading anything since mid-March. My concentration is shot, and so I …
: Last, next. 65: Nat’l Parks (Yosemite) 66: Coastal (Chesapeake)
: My Plan for National Poetry Month Now that shoures soote the droghte of March hath perced to the roote, it’s time once again to …
: Finished: Week of 16 Mar Robertson Davies: World of Wonders (Penguin 1975) (comfort food reread) Mary Ann Mattoon: Jungian …
: Finished: Week of 9 Mar Robertson Davies: The Manticore (Penguin 1972) and Fifth Business (Penguin 1970) (comfort food …
: Finished: Week of 2 Mar Luis Sagasti (Petch, trns): Fireflies (Charco Press, 2017) Clarice Lispector (Entrekin, trns): Near …
: Finished: Week of 24 Feb Anna Burns: Milkman (Graywolf, 2018) Ariana Harwicz (Moses & Orloff, trns): Die, My Love (Charco …
: Finished: Week of 17 Feb Ann Quin: Berg (And Other Stories, 1964/2019) Su Hwang: Bodega (Milkweed, 2018) Quin: A wonderful …
: A reminder of one of the many, many reasons why I left Oregon. From the New York Times, 21 Feb 2020: …
: Last, next. 64: Nat’l Parks (Zion) 65: Nat’l Parks (Yosemite)
: Finished: Week of 3 Feb Antonio Damasio: Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (Harcourt, 2003) Claire …
: Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism » Do nothing I cannot defend. Do not distort, lie, slant, or hype. …
: Finished: Week of 20 Jan James C Scott: Seeing Like a State (Yale, 1998) Anna Kavan: Ice (Penguin, 1967)
: Credulous, Cowardly, and Vicious David Bentley Hart (via): The 2016 U.S. election proved that, even …
: Finished: Week of 13 Jan Keith Thomas: Religion and the Decline of Magic (Penguin, 1971)
: Finished: Week of 06 Jan Elaine Pagels: Revelations (Penguin, 2012)
: Finished: Week of 30 Dec Clarice Lispector: The Hour of the Star (Benjamin Moser, trns; New Directions, 2011) Ishmael Reed: …
: Last, next. 63: Shenandoah (Maple) 64: Nat’l Parks (Zion)
: “Finished” for 2020 In 2019, I tracked what poetry I finished reading each week. New plan. Until my poetry reading gets …
: Until the End of the World So my DVD of Until the End of the World has arrived. Because of travel plans over the next two …
: Last, next. 62: Shenandoah (Oak) 63: Shenandoah (Maple)
: At more or less this moment, 30 years ago, I walked into Chris & Dave’s dorm room to see who was …
: “Finished” in 2019 While I’ve continued to move slowly through several collections, everything unfinished last month …
: Last, next. 61: Shenandoah (Birch) 62: Shenandoah (Oak)
: “Finished” in September I didn’t finish anything in September, since most of my reading time was devoted to my (I think) …
: I wrote a haiku, and twenty-eight years later, I finally published it. (Thanks to @Patti for blowing …
: Last, next. 60: MN Yellow 61: Shenandoah (Birch)
: The Path to Nothing Gilbert Seldes, The Stammering Century: But it is almost impossible to believe …
: “Finished” for the Fall I’ve been reassessing my “Finished” program, and I think it’s time to make a few changes. First, …
: Finished: Week of 26 August Reginald Shepherd: Red Clay Weather (Pittsburgh, 2011)
: Finished: Week of 19 August Ken Babstock: On Malice (Coach House, 2014) Tracy K Smith: Wade in the Water (Graywolf, 2018)
: Finished: Week of 12 August Another week with nothing finished. I’m mired in several longer things, as well as the arrival …
: Finished: Week of 5 August Nothing. This has been a bad week — I had an allergic reaction to all of the poetry I was trying to …
: Last, next. 59: Mile Marker (Stars) 60: MN Yellow
: Finished: Week of 29 July Robert Bly: The Light Around the Body (Harper & Row, 1967; Norton, 2018) Laura (Riding) …
: Finished: Week of 22 July Reginald Shepherd: Otherhood (Pittsburgh, 2003) James Lenfestey: The Marriage Book (Milkweed, 2017) …
: Finished: Week of 15 July Robert Bly: Silence in the Snowy Fields (Wesleyan, 1962; Norton, 2018) Philip Levine: What Work Is …
: Finished: Week of 7 July Frank O’Hara: Meditations in an Emergency (Grove, 1957) CD Wright: The Poet, the Lion, Talking …
: Finished: Week of 1 July I’m this close to finishing a few books, but I haven’t wanted to rush them, and I’ve had so many …
: Last, next. 58: Mile Marker (Arrow) 59: Mile Marker (Stars)
: Finished: Week of 24 June Nothing. I didn’t pick up a book of poetry except to move it out of the way as I reached for …
: Finished: Week of 17 June Harryette Mullen: Urban Tumbleweed (Graywolf, 2013)
: Half Finished with “Finished” I started this “Finished” experiment on the last day of 2018, and I just realized we’re approaching …
: Finished: Week of 10 June Tomas Tranströmer (Bly, trns): The Half-Finished Heaven (Graywolf, 2001, 2017) Jenny George: The …
: Finished: Week of 3 June Tomas Tranströmer (various translators): For the Living and the Dead (Ecco, 1995)
: Finished: Week of 27 May Another week in which I didn’t actually complete anything. I’ve been drifting through some poetry …
: Last, next. 57: Coastal (LA) 58: Mile Marker (Arrow)
: Finished: Week of 20 May Nothing. Between Anniversaries, which I just started last week, and pushing almost everything else …
: Finished: Week of 13 May Melissa Stein: Terrible Blooms (Copper Canyon, 2018) Ada Limón: Bright Dead Things (Milkweed …
: Finished: Week of 6 May Despite a short trip to Florida and other distractions, I somehow managed to finish three short …
: Last, next. 56: Wednesday Green 57: Coastal (LA)
: Finished: Week of 29 April Christopher Logue: War Music (FSG, 2015) This book is sort of a cheat: it’s a new edition of …
: “Finished” in April JH Prynne: The White Stones (NYRB, 2016) Claire Wahmanholm: Night Vision (New Michigan Press, 2017) …
: “Finished” for April This month, I’m going to let myself off the weekly hook, and try instead to complete several longer …
: Finished: Week of 25 Mar AR Ammons: Selected Poems (Library of America, 2006) Ursula Le Guin: So Far So Good: Final Poems …
: On Poetry and Bullshit Lawrence Ferlinghetti just turned 100 yesterday, on what would have been my father’s 95th birthday, …
: Finished: Week of 18 Mar Aimee Nezhukumatathil: Oceanic (Copper Canyon, 2018) Rosemary Tonks: Bedouin of the London Evening …
: Last, next. 55: Kraft (graph) 56: Wednesday Green
: Finished: Week of 11 Mar This is the first week that I haven’t finished reading any book of poetry, and there are several …
: Finished: Week of 4 Mar Tracy K Smith: Life on Mars (Graywolf, 2011) CK Williams: The Vigil (FSG, 1997)
: So sorry that Sixth Chamber closed for good today. Here are two bookmarks. One is from the mid 90s, …
: Finished: Week of 25 Feb The third week in a row with only one completed book. Paisley Rekdal: Imaginary Vessels (Copper …
: Facts & Opinions “You can argue opinions, but you can’t argue facts.” This may, under some limited set of …
: Finished: Week of 18 Feb Basho (Corman, trns): Backroads to Far Towns (White Pine, 2004) Cid Corman perfectly captures the …
: Hannah Arendt (via): Just as terror, even in its pre-total, merely tyrannical form ruins all …
: Last, next. 54: Kraft (lined) 55: Kraft (graph)
: Isaac Bashevis Singer (via): Of course I believe in free will. I have no choice.
: Finished: Week of 11 Feb John Taggart: Is Music (Copper Canyon, 2010)
: Finished: Week of 4 Feb WS Merwin: The Lice (Atheneum, 1967; Copper Canyon, 2017) Anslem Hollo: Guests of Space (Coffee …
: On Creative Longevity It seems that two qualities are necessary if a great artist is to remain …
: Unfinished This may be the first week I finish only one book, if that. In fact, this may be a zero books week. …
: Finished: Week of 28 Jan Galway Kinnell: Three Books (Mariner, 2002) Tomas Tranströmer (Fulton, trns): The Great Enigma: New …
: Finished: Week of 21 Jan Harryette Mullen: Recyclopedia (Graywolf, 2006) Linda Gregg: In the Middle Distance (Graywolf, 2006) …
: Finished: Week of 14 Jan Paul Celan (Joris, trns): Breathturn (Green Integer, 2006) GS Giscombe: Prairie Style (Dalkey, …
: Ken Levine: James Garner was very self-effacing. On acting he once said: “I’m a Methodist, but not …
: Finished: Week of 7 Jan Larry Levis: The Widening Spell of the Leaves (Pittsburgh, 1991) Erin Belieu: Slant Six (Copper …
: Last, next. 53: Clandestine (A) 54: Kraft (lined)
: Finished: Week of 31 Dec Ken Babstock: Days Into Flatspin (House of Anansi, 2001) Ursula Le Guin: Wild Angels (Copper …
: “Finished” Begins In light of the appallingly large number of unread and under-read books of poetry currently …
: These books arrived for xmas this year. No poetry? No. I have sixty-eight books of poetry on my TBR …
: Michael Pye, The Edge of the World: …We’ve seen how plague became the reason, just like terrorism …
: Last, next. 52: Shenandoah (Maple) 53: Clandestine (A) (I apparently missed taking a succession …
: Last, next. 50: Shenandoah (Birch) 51: Shenandoah (Oak)
: William the Silent: One need not hope in order to undertake, nor succeed in order to persevere.
: Last, next. 49: MN Red 50: Shenandoah (Birch)
: Being shy, an introvert, an HSP, and having social anxiety are four quite distinct (if sometimes …
: On Morning Pages Joyce asked about morning pages. Turns out I’m feeling chatty this morning. So. Despite some big …
: How Mad Men Should Have Ended I still haven’t watched Mad Men all the way through, but my wife has, and her reaction to the …
: Some reflections on “When Leaders become Followers” There was an excellent piece this morning by …
: Last, next. 48: MN Blue 49: MN Red
: Nameless Decades Remember when decades used to have names? The Thirties, the Seventies. According to the naming …
: Last, next. 47: Wednesday Blue 48: MN Blue
: Drake’s Equation & the Church @frostedechoes recently wrote an interesting post on Dunbar’s Number and the Church. It’s worth …
: Last, next. 45: Coastal (SF) 46: Kraft (lined)
: Last, next. 44: Kraft (lined) 45: Coastal (SF)
: Last, next. Kraft Lined. 43, 44.
: Last, next. 42: Pitch Black 43: Kraft (lined) My first Lined Kraft since the first pack back in …
: Last, next. 41: Shenandoah (Maple) 42: Pitch Black (new style)
: Last, next. 40: Shenandoah (Oak) 41: Shenandoah (Maple)
: Otoliths Some poems of mine have just appeared at Otoliths.
: Last, next. 39: Shenandoah (Birch) 40: Shenandoah (Oak) 40a: Dime Novel (as my “ongoing” poetry …
: Last, next. 38: MN Blue 39: Shenandoah (Birch)
: Last, next. 37: Pitch Black 38: MN Blue (Last of the original order from almost exactly three years …
: Last, next. 36, 37. (These are the first two of the new-style Pitch Black)
: Last, next. 35: Two Rivers 36: Pitch Black Fun facts: This is the last Two Rivers, and the first …
: Last, next. 34: Chicago 35: Two Rivers (Last of both.)
: Last, next. 33: Two Rivers 34: Chicago Finishing the Two Rivers early: the staples, as always, were …
: Last, next. 32, 33. (Only one more Two Rivers after these two… Saving one of my favorites for …
: Last, next. 31: Chicago 32: Two Rivers
: Last, next. 30: Pitch Black 31: Chicago
: Last, next. 29: Snowblind 30: Pitch Black
: Last, next. 28: Two Rivers 29: Snowblind
: Last, next. 27: Pitch Black 28: Two Rivers
: Vote Early, Vote Often! I voted! And, hey! I took some extra stickers for my dead friends. The dirty secret about dead …
: Last, next. 26: Chicago 27: Pitch Black (Also pictured, a black and silver Zebra Sarasa.)
: Last, next. 25: MN Yellow 26: Chicago (Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago)
: Last, next. 24: MN Red 25: MN Yellow
: Last, next. 23: Two Rivers 24: MN Red
: Last, next. 22–23: Two Rivers
: Last, next. 21: Pitch Black 22: Two Rivers (The previous succession is missing: 20 Pitch Black to 21 …
: First and last afternoons. 1 July 2011 at 1:30pm: 30 March 2016 at 2:35pm:
: Last, next. 19: Shenandoah (Oak) 20: Pitch Black
: Last, next. 18: Snowblind 19: Shenandoah (Oak)
: Last, next. 17: Shenandoah (Maple) 18: Snowblind (Snowblind is only a day old, but I’ve already …
: Last, next. 16: Shenandoah (Birch) 17: Shenandoah (Maple)
: Last, next. 15: Two Rivers 16: Shenandoah (Birch)
: Last, next. 14: MN Blue 15: Two Rivers
: Last, next. State Fair time soon. Moving on to the Blue Ribbon (#14) even though I’m only 2/3 …
: Up I’ve been curious why, when people here on the coast say they are travelling to Portland, that …
: Daylight What time is it, really? Our laptops, checking in with the atomic clock, updated their times …
: Starlight As we leave the urban sprawls behind us in the east, the sky is once again a fact rather than an …
: Names on the Land My bring-along book for this trip has been the majestic Names on the Land, by George R. Stewart. I …
: Rock Springs Twelve hours on the road, ten hours driving. The headwinds dropped, the land levelled out, and we …
: Mileage As we drove north to pick up I-80 outside Cheyenne today, we finally returned to a familiar roadbed …
: Kansas We are in Salina, Kansas, hoping to make it somewhere near Denver. After a few days on the road, we …
: Independence Hello from a Starbucks in Independence, Missouri. We are making both better and worse time today …
: Day 1 (part 2) Well, we made it. Cambridge, Ohio. Our first really full day of driving. Too much of it after dark, …
: Day 1 (part 1) We only made it as far as eastern Pennsylvania Saturday night, and we decided to stay two nights and …
: Sur la Route We made it: we got on the road with a van packed literally to the roof. Did we say we’d hit …
: Oregon Trail 2010 A week from this evening, we hope to be in a hotel somewhere in Ohio, our first day’s drive …
: Hestur Meet Hestur, our main transport for the upcoming emigration: It’s a 1999 Ford E150 Econoline. …
: No Damn Cat This dark morning, the rain lashes my front windows and Monstrance is on for at least the fourth …
: Quo Vadimus For quite a few reasons (which I won’t bore you with), 2006 was the worst year of my life, and …
: Shiny Things In an attempt to slow down in my reading of ATD, I have been trying to distract myself in some way. …
: Chron Job Here’s a thought I just had. To collate and then read all of Pynchon’s works …
: All-Night DJ I highly recommend this review. It is spoilerish, if that’s a concern as you read through …
: “It’s…” We have been Netflixing Monty Python’s Flying Circus over the last few weeks, and it has been …
: Time Well, it is finished. After a 12-hour marathon yesterday, I completed the last volume of Á la …
: Eleven Twenty Okay, so Pynchon’s newest is now listed at Amazon as having 1120 pages, rather than the 992 as …
: Blackout We are staying home today, and we will not turn on the radio, the tv, or the ringers on our phones. …
: A New Sort of European Climbing thru Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon, (MD) and have been for roughly the last month. …
: Stand-up Tragic Will Ferrell recalls the first time he realized his destiny in life. “I remember in elementary …
: We Await... I don’t know if I can stand the wait. (See this, and this as well.) So much for the pattern; …
: Sahha I finished V. It is the 20th century in microcosm. People are on obsessive quests for something they …
: Keep Cool but Care So, I finished GR last night. So much more beautiful and obscene than I could possibly have fathomed …
: In the Zone GR is still going strong: Slothrop is about to ditch his pig suit, so Marvy’s castration and …
: Notices Gilbert Sorrentino has died. As of 9:30 am EDT, however, I can only find the Wikipedia article as …
: Rocketman Was Here So. The Proust has stalled. This is okay with me; I need time to digest all that has happened. I …
: Surrender to Destiny The trip to Florida was good, calm. We saw dolphins. We watched the Oscars. We developed an …
: Have a Pancake For most of December, we had a trio of DVDs from Netflix in the house, holding up our queue. The …
: The Midterm I finished The Guermantes Way a few days ago, after roughly ten weeks of reading. In Search of Lost …
: Timing I may go to a book (poems or prose or fiction) to read new evocations or descriptions of what I …
: “This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole.” The news of John Spencer’s death …
: First Snowfall We are hosting our nieces this weekend. They are 12 and 10, so our dinner last night was chicken …
: Young Girls in Flower In the last week or so, I advanced to Volume 2 of In Search of Lost Time. So far, we have returned …
: Proust Update Mere pages away from the end of Swann’s Way — so close in fact that I don’t know if I …
: The Plunge I have at long last taken the Proust plunge. I began the Moncrieff/Kilmartin translation about six …
: Poetry and Shock I think people follow sensational news stories that escalate into media frenzies at least in part to …
: On the Hay(na)ku form We are pattern seekers and meaning makers: we cannot escape form. Even a depiction of chaos will be, …
: Furthering the Discussion Some years ago, I heard a music reviewer criticize a band for “not furthering the discussion.” They …
: I have been trying for many years to move away from writing out of anger or turmoil, from a place of …
: Dead Heat I don’t buy it. I don’t believe that the polls are correct about the neck-and-neck nature of the …
: Jewels and Binoculars I don’t think poetry is necessarily after clarity, and I certainly never expect accuracy. I prefer a …
: Empty the room to see the room. Strain against voice to discover voice.
: That’ll be the day I go back to Annandale. I will continue my explorations today by venturing to the Apple Store in Santa Monica, where I plan …
: That California Trip Our kind hosts waiting for us in Mesa directed us along a different route from what we’d planned, …
: Lew Welch reminds us that while doing something utterly necessary and ordinary, we should pause for …
: Drive My Car Excuse me for a moment. I need to meet my monthly quota in order to remain a Cantankerous …
: The Style of Their Epoch Helen Vendler in The Breaking of Style: Poets are often praised for insight or wisdom, and they …
: This Way to the Egress! Some time ago, I saw a documentary about casinos on one of those cable channels that show …
: The Tracery of a Pattern I am crawling slowly through Invisible Cities. It reads like so many prose poems, with each …
: Walter Ong, Orality & Literacy: The personal diary is a very late literary form, in effect …