Tag Archives: poetry

Poem for Sarah

Some deaths hit you like a broken bone. That sharp. That painful. They stick with you, hurting even when healing, a dull throb keeping you from sleeping; a startled, knifeslash pang when jostled. And you know that, decades later, it’ll … Continue reading

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You Should Read This: Poetry As Insurgent Art by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

One of the distinctions that I sometimes hear people making is “regular” Sf and “literary” SF, usually with some baggage about the literary SF being art. I say, if you’re making something you don’t really interact with for food, shelter, or clothing (and even then, in some cases), you are probably making art.

Word-wrangling is art, no matter whether it is used for the lowest purposes or the most exalted, and the artist who relaxes and enjoys it learns to use artful techniques for the entertainment or edification of her/his readers. And they may, in that process, create something lasting.
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You Should Read This: An Appreciation of Maya Angelou

I first read Maya Angelou as a teenager, with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I was a white Midwestern girl and the world Angelou described was different to me. I read Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus around the same time and in each case, the narrator stayed with me for years, was like a friend I’d met at summer camp or some other event, never seen again but loved all the same.
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You Should Read This: The Essential Rumi (Coleman Barks translation)

I first discovered Rumi’s work when I was in graduate school. It spoke to me in a way that few other poems had, seeming to pluck out the questions I had and showing me that the answer was already there.
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The Lonesome Trail

…in the saddlebags are memories of rain storms, winters, driving down roads slick with ice and the reflection of Christmas tree lights, down roads laden with pine shadows and the blood of unwary animals. Similes redolent of cinnamon and sweet amber, puns as prickly as hedgehogs, intricate words with Indo-European roots to be set, chiming, into sestinas. Continue reading

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