Kay Ryan’s The Niagara River

I picked this up in 2006 after I found out Kay Ryan was the judge for the Walt Whitman Award, just to see if there was any chance her aesthetic might match mine (The Erotic Postulate was shortlisted for the award, so you start to wonder what your chances are when you’re so close: one Read More …

GoodReads

So I joined yet another social site. I think this one is forgivable as it focuses solely on books and gives me a better space to organize my library, plus many of my grad school friends from Michigan are on it, so it’s been a nice way to reconnect with that former community of writers. Read More …

Book Parties and Kitty Tiffs

So last night Katy Lederer hosted a little book party at her place to celebrate the publication of three books. As usual, it was an interesting mix of people from work and people from the literary community (and even those categories often cross). Actually, “mix” may not be the right word as the writers were Read More …

White Woman Prances

A brief break from the Jamaica postings to tell you about an important portrait exhibit at the International Center of Photography. The exhibit is called “Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits” curated by Deborah Willis. The ICP is located at 1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street here in New York. And Read More …

In Memory of Len Roberts

Just a quick note from Jamaica. I was checking my email and discovered a message from my colleagues at Muhlenberg College informing me the poet Len Roberts passed away this past Thursday night. Len was one of the first poets to mentor me and I can safely say he was probably one of the best Read More …

Palinodes at the Ear Inn

Went to hear my friend Hui Hui read at the Ear Inn Saturday afternoon. Hui Hui (Tung-Hui Hu) has two books out, now: Mine just out from Ausable Press; andThe Book of Motion which won the Eisner Prize and was published by The University of Georgia Press in 2003. Please buy them. It was a small Read More …

What I’ve Been Reading

Not that anyone else is probably interested, but every now and then I like to make a list of books I recently read. So here I go: Bernard Cooper’s A Year of Rhymes; Mark Doty’s Dog Years; Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass; Cynthia Hogue’s Incognito Body; Brenda Shaughnessy’sInterior with Sudden Joy; Rick Hilles’s Brother Salvage; Aristotle’s Poetics; Kei Read More …