O, for a quaff of Provence after the fun of Brahms’s “Academic Festival Overture as conducted joyously by Leonard Bernstein baton in hand as if he’s dancing bringing back college days and drinking songs on bassoons and clarinets: it always lifts my spirits: ten merry minutes culminating in the all-time greatest rendition of Gaudeamus igitur.   -- David Lehman          Related Stories "Identity Card" [by David Lehman and William Wadsworth]   ..read more

                          __________________________________________________________________ Instructions for Time Travel   You must go through Mr. Jefferson along his row of chinaberry trees   behind the ruined smokehouse in unmarked tracts, under fieldstones   with no carvings, no monuments with a few leaves shadowing the mulch   near scattered weeds, in sunken lines while the sun walks in the day   at the end of the day in an oval of brushed earth   just as the soft path finishes under branches ..read more

The book of my enemy has been remaindered And I am pleased. In vast quantities it has been remaindered Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized And sits in piles in a police warehouse, My enemy's much-prized effort sits in piles In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs. Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles One passes down reflecting on life's vanities, Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews Lavished to no avail upon one's enemy's book -- For behold, here is that book Among these ranks and banks of duds, These ponderous and seemingly i ..read more

Identity Card Identity may be difficult to define. It equals itself, as a rose is a rose. Tell me your name. I’ll tell you mine, Though if I do, don't t0ake that as a sign That I am someone whom anyone knows. Identity is not so easy to define. Don'tt lose that card, or you may find Another plays your hand.  Anything goes. The name of the game is Anyone's, not mine. Forensic science may underline Our DNA, but family history shows Identity ain’t so scientifically defined. Released from history, nameless, a wine Of no known vintage seduces my foes. Tell me your name. I ..read more

Jean Hélion "Edouard" (1939). Clovis Vail © Photo Jean-Louis Losi
© ADAGP, Paris, 2024 A retrospective exhibition on the painter Jean Hélion at Musée d’Art moderne de Paris called La Prose du monde opened a few weeks back. Visually, casually, it begins with a monumental triptych recalling the events of May, 1968,  Choses vues en mai (1969), hung on the back wall of the foyer. The piece is in what you might call “graphic novel” style: a panel of intriguing “moments” rather than defined “events” – think of the visual intention that unites Jiro Taniguchi’s A Distant Neighborhood, Hugo ..read more

It's National Poetry Month, and so many poets I know are churning out a poem-a-day. They are emailing and asking for prompts, for any ideas to trigger inspiration. I don't have anything to offer them. I feel old, dried up. But every time I am asked, I think of this poem by the brilliant Dante di Stefano.    Prompts (for High School Teachers Who Write Poetry) Write about walking into the building as a new teacher. Write yourself hopeful. Write a row of empty desks. Write the face of a student you’ve almost forgotten; he’s worn a Derek Jeter jersey all year. Do not conjecture about t ..read more

I love this Sappho poem of pure jealousy. I love the “kindled the flesh along my arms/ and smothered me in its smoke-blind rush.” I’m just realizing that many of my favorite poems celebrate the worst parts of our beings: jealousy, lust, rage. I am thinking about this because I have been reading this book, Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection, a book recommended by my meditation instructor. The basic premise of the book is that love is not something you simply emanate like a yogi from a cave. Rather, you have to practice it in both small and big ways. The book ..read more

Tayi Tibble’s second book of poems Rangikura was just reprinted with Knopf. (The volume was first published in 2021 in New Zealand.)  Tibble, from Wellington, New Zealand, writes a poetry that blends her Māori culture with the attitude and wisdom of a young Millennial or the elder stateswoman of Gen Z. (Tibble was born in 1995.) Her poems are wildly bold, not shying away from colonialism, climate change, and the banality of pop culture. They are defiant and tender, as illustrated in these lines from “Tohunga”: good on you babe. / You got what you wanted. / The juicy earth / the fact ..read more

Les Keiter recreated West Coast baseball games for heartsick New Yorkers bereft of the Dodger and Giants after they moved to LA and SF at the end of the 1957 season. It's the same job Ronald Reagan performed in the 1940s. How well I remember lying in bed listening to my black Zenith radio with the lights out as the clock moved toward midnight on a September night in 1959. The Giants and Dodgers were battling for first place. In the opening inning, Don Drysdale walked the first three Giants to face him. Then he proceeded to strike out the next three. The Dodgers won, ended the season tied for ..read more

                                      _________________________________________________ She Said in Bed   When I die let my body fly. Book me a trip on a rocket ship and launch me at dawn.  Play some Hendrix and a Nina Simone song.  Give me a eulogy through a static headset.  Let the booster jets be my pallbearers and give me a smoke plume in lieu of a tomb.  And everyone awake who tries to fake some caffeinated joy can take their eyes out of their latte chai and turn their ..read more