Advent is a penitential season. It’s a dark time for getting ready, a time for repair. It’s that last, slow, ungainly month of pregnancy. Daylight is brief, especially this year in downtown Pittsburgh when it’s been cloud-ridden and drizzly nearly every day. My immediate family is in such disarray of various sorts that other than …
The Americans Poems by David Roderick University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014 $15.95 We can’t fence in wildness; we can’t fence out the world. It’s an old story of man’s interactions with nature and the global community. But in David Roderick’s The Americans, it’s seen through new, unflinching eyes. Here, Roderick’s strong voice and steady gaze …
Lucky Bones Poems by Peter Meinke University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014 $15.95 Recently I read an issue of Poetry in which there was an essay titled, “Facing Altars: Poetry and Prayer” by Mary Karr. Karr quotes Auden: “The purpose of poetry is disenchantment.” She continues, “Poetry in the recent past hasn’t allowed us much joy.” …
The Rooms are Filled Jessica Null Vealitzek She Writes Press, 2014 $16.95 There are two versions of a small town. In one, everyone knows each other and offers support when something goes wrong. In another, people are used to traditional mindsets and lifestyles, and either welcome change or destroy it. The main characters—a young widow, …
A few weeks ago, from Pittsburgh I drove north on I-79 through the deepening autumn to Edinboro, PA to attend an Edinboro University retired faculty luncheon. There was a hearty turn out of all us old profs, and as usual, I was grateful we were all wearing name tags. Every time I go to these …
There’s a blaze of light In every word, It doesn’t matter which you heard, The holy or the broken – Hallelujah! -Leonard Cohen Not long ago, a student asked, “Dr. Tieman, when you were a kid, which poet influenced you the most?” I was surprised by my own answer: St. Thomas Aquinas. I’ve heard …
Accepting the Disaster Poems by Joshua Mehigan Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014 Hardcover: $23.00 Accepting the Disaster is a brilliant new book of verse from one of our finest poets, Joshua Mehigan. This is Mehigan’s second collection, and it’s a formally crafted volume that has the sparkle and shine of a master at work, a …
What makes a poem a poem? Well, we all accept that a poem is written in lines, rather than sentences, but what does that mean for us as poets? Where do lines “break” and who breaks them? The phrase makes it so accidental, when really line is one of the most deliberate of our choices. …