For the Greeks, who had no word for irreversible death, one did not die, one darkened. —Mark Strand Where the Japanese iris right now stand ready to accept the inevitable purple blossom she found four dead mice in their nest of dirt and dusty fur all with their small ears pointed like pilgrims toward the … Read more
We piled off the bus—field trip!— my teacher saying, suggestive and disinterested, “Just look.” The Minneapolis Institute of Arts free and full of kids, Chinese jades, gods and goddesses from everywhere, room after room of very old faces looking back at us. And here this one naked manso tall and alone in his own room, … Read more
As I mentioned before, my 166 piece photo library from the national automotive museum in Alsace is unweildly for online use. I focused mainly on potrait shooting of the most amazing vehicles on the planet–like this very early racing Bugatti from the 1920s. I’d show you some photos of the Royale (the rarest and most … Read more
Paul Muldoon is a curious character, even by artistic standards, andhe’s been on a serious roll of late. To his growing list ofaccomplishments—including ten collections of smart, allusive, and oftenvery funny poetry, as well as a Pulitzer Prize—he recently landed theprestigious (and influential) gig as poetry editor at The New Yorker.That’s all impressive scuttlebutt in … Read more
Your wife had left you post-diagnosis yet here you were this night stumbling on fire with dance and blood, a retired high school Spanish teacher, now learning the new syntax of multiple sclerosis. It burned from your hands and feet, the castanets, the dark mole on the flamenco dancer’s cheek, All the broken stomping, … Read more
To lose an oak is no heartbreak. —No, but to see them go by the acre, at a stroke, is enough to crack a man open, the heart not broken so much as stricken, torqued at the root and left in a thick choke of ache. Just so, a whole forest’s felling will take faith’s … Read more
I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know what a dream is anymore. I got a lot of shit kicked out of me. Have you somehow made your peace with this world? I’m curious: without getting all religious or flaky on me, can you tell me how you did that? Once upon a … Read more
I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the pearl of great price, the one field that had treasure in it. I realize now that I must give all that I have to possess … Read more
Selected Poems, 1986 A “best of” anthology of a kind, these are really good poems—and the mixture of work sheds light on Bly’s stylistic and topical meanderings. You’ll find “Counting Small Boned Bodies” and other lamentations on Vietnam, as well as more than a hundred examples from three decades of work. The prose poems from … Read more
“We have to speak up about this war. Now we don’t even count the bodies. We only count the American bodies. Woo-hoo. That’s even more self-obsessed. We kill hundreds and hundreds of Iraqis, and we don’t pay any attention to how many there are. We don’t call up the hospitals; we don’t call up the … Read more