I haven’t posted in a long while. We experienced some flooding in the early morning of April 18 and, at first, that took up all my time, then it compromised my Internet connection, and finally it left me a little overwhelmed, not because of loss of property or anything like that, but because I sometimes feel we are already flooded with messages, posts and updates, etc., and I wonder what value comes from another dribble in the stream. But now I am feeling less underwater and … [Read more...]
Winter weekend: reading Philip Levine and Donna Hilbert
It's a quiet weekend here and a perfect time to post. Did you read The New Yorker (Feb 11 & 18 issue)? Philip Levine has a poem "In Another Country" and when I say it's dreamy, I mean it literally. In this other country, ". . . There is no town, only / fields of long grass blowing in the wind / and beyond the wind the gray mountains." It ends, ". . . . The wind kept prodding / at my back as though determined / to push me away from where I was, / fearful, perhaps, I … [Read more...]
Pop-Up Fun
After participating in the Pop-Up Bookfair at The Empty Bottle last Sunday, I think all bookfairs should be at a bar. It was great fun--the patrons and sellers got mellower as the music amped up. To my right were Gina Frangello and Leah Tallon representing Other Voices Books. In addition to publishing books like Currency by Zoe Zolbrod and How to Hold a Woman by Chicago’s own Billy Lombardo, Other Voices will be holding its first summer writing workshop, Other Voices … [Read more...]