Somewhere among my effects—my stuff, my junk—there is a small book with a white cover, stiff and warped. It’s not a Bible, and I’ve not read it very much. It’s a copy of poems by Tennyson. For the first twenty years of my life I lived in an apartment house in Manhattan, a five-story L-shaped …
Subtly rendered with glimpses of brilliance, we can only hope that Matthew Gallaway’s first novel, The Metropolis Case, is not his last and indeed bears no similarity to the opera at the heart of its plot. Tristan and Isolde, notorious for its tendency to claim lives and careers because of its length and difficulty, acts …
Sasha Sings The Laundry On The Line by Sean Thomas Dougherty BOA Editions Paperback, $16.00 ISBN 9781934414392 Published September 2010 Many years ago, I was driving down a street with a friend, a geneticist who used to play cello in a symphony. It was spring. I mentioned how beautiful the blossoming pear trees were. He …
I’m on the train to my home city, traveling east rather unsteadily through the flooded marshlands. I’m reading a strange little book I found on my daughter’s shelf a few hours ago—Soulstorm, a collection of short stories by Clarice Lispector (1925-1977), translated from the Portuguese by Alexis Levitin, and first published in 1974. I’ve never …
By the way, when Basho takes his Narrow Road to The Deep North, he is walking a path that leads him to, through, and around the very area in Japan that is suffering the nuclear disaster. Asaka, now Fukushima, he describes as wooded. It is here, if I recall correctly, that he searches in vain …
Diwata Barbara Jane Reyes BOA Editions Paperback, $16.00 ISBN 9781934414378 Published September, 2010 A Diwata, in Philippine culture, is a guardian spirit of nature similar to a nymph or elf who resides in large trees and is capable of delivering both fortune and misfortune. They are called upon ritually to bring a fruitful harvest, health, …
Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination. — Ludwig Wittgenstein In the early 1980s I went to the Third Annual Conference on Computers and Writing. A well-known computer guru—can his name really have been Chip?—was the keynote speaker. Against expectation, he told us that across town they were …
Once, while searching for an old photo, my mother unearthed an envelope that contained: • My father’s obituary, dated 11/5/69 • A holy card (Saint Francis) from his funeral • A dried four-leaf clover in clear plastic wrap • A card with emergency air raid instructions • Another card with a list of emergency alerts …