To fall asleep lately, I've been listening to a BBC podcast called "In Our Time," in which the host--the placid, grandfatherly voiced Melvyn Bragg--engages various scholars and academics in discussions of popular history, science, the humanities, and other general curiosities. Subjects include the 30 Years War,
Picking up the pieces on a rainy Wednesday. I found myself listening to the experimental band The Books the other day, and watched a short documentary about their process. An animating preoccupation that drove the music was conversation—the idea that any juxtaposition is really a discourse. You put one
I have a tried-and-true method for pursuing things that require some willpower: Start early, and don't anticipate. When I started running consistently, it was late fall. The holidays were right around the corner, and with them the new year, which was an obvious time to adopt a new
I recently finished Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout, a novel that follows episodes in the middle aged lives of characters in Strout's fictional town of Crosby, Maine. I didn't really like the book that much, but I'd say what I found a bit
Lunch Someone stole my jacket once in this café straight off the back of this teak chair and here we are again scanning the menu QR code at the white table ordering just coffee for now thanks and the beautiful waiter vanishes into yellow air wind dull against our faces
Breaking news They let me know over the phone, while I was walking: There was an issue at the parade. You always had me so calm in a crowd I’d be this pelt cap tight in the mayhem of girls, breathy moth-like in skirts, melting. Their voices important, like
Hi! It's been awhile. I'd explain, but what would be the point? After more than 10 years in New York, I moved to Mansfield, Conn., which pains me as a native Bostonian, because Connecticut sucks. Yes, it's beautiful here. I'm seeing birds
So clearly, the second half of poetry month did not go as planned. I got Covid—for what I honestly believe was the first time; I’ve never tested positive before—on my trip to Boston, and was somewhere between semiconscious and miserable for like a week. I’ve recovered
I’ll be traveling over the next few days and away from the computer. April posts will pause, and I’ll be back next Tuesday.
Poetry month 2025, No. 9
Poetry month 2025, No. 8
Poetry month, No. 7