It takes forever to get into the Allegheny County Jail. Between the four of us, we only have two quarters, which we stick in the parking meter out front. Once past the first set of doors, a police officer approaches us: “Ladies, you need to lock up all your stuff in the lockers, no keys, …
For thirty years, I’ve been reading Lyn Lifshin’s poems in independent literary magazines across the country. I admire her integrity as a poet — she’s always true to her voice and vision — she never sounds like anyone else. Here are three of her recent poems: Salsa it’s the moves not the man. He could be the size of a …
Although the high school where I teach was locked down for an afternoon, it turns out we were never in much danger. They caught the right guy, the actual guy who shot the cop, a couple of miles north of here. When they cordoned-off this neighborhood, they surrounded the house of the wrong guy. He saw a bunch of cops, so …
I am in awe of how little I actually exaggerate in these stories. I tend to edit for continuity, so I will, for example, put two different events on the same day, and say they happened to just one teacher. I’ll change a name and such for the sake of anonymity. But, in truth, I …
Sometimes chance conspires and the laws of randomness cast good things in our direction at a time that seems exactly right. This is what happened to me this week, when I extracted from two giant reading piles—columns over four feet high, weaving even now a little precariously behind my desk—a thin chapbook by a poet …
Yesterday, the last day of classes, we get a “Faith Based Initiative”. Some preacher from the neighborhood decides to take all the kids who have been suspended a bunch, and give them a barbeque over in the football field. The end result is that all the nice kids are in class doing various onerous tasks, …
I remember years ago when my American friend brought me a gift from Arizona, I accidentally spotted the “Made in China” label right away at the bottom of the item. I said to my friend that it was quite a trip for the present—going all the way to the U.S. and coming back home again. …
Everyone knows that the writing of poetry, of becoming a poet, entails a long apprenticeship. Mine began at age nineteen, which was when I wrote my first poem. Both an initiation and a damnation, it was Plathian and full of deep, female associations: mother, womb, kitchen knife. In the years to come, I would carve …