Here’s a roll call for all the books & scholars I gained so much from, in writing the poems in Bone Antler Stone. For some reason a handful are wildly expensive now, so I’ve put an asterisk before those that are still reasonably priced. Although as I discovered in collecting them all (sometimes only being able to photocopy them), handfuls […]
Originally posted on Underfoot Poetry:
The subject of these poems, Walter Anderson, a Mississippi Gulf Coast artist who died in 1965, spent most of his time on the Barrier Islands off the coast of Mississippi. The first 6 poems are reflections of that. The final four are set in China during the Cultural revolution. Anderson attempted to walk across China…
Excerpts from Book 8 of Wordsworth’s 1805 Prelude, which he titles “Love of Nature Leading to Love of Mankind.” Other excerpts are here. With deep devotion, Nature, did I feel In that great city what I owed to thee: High thoughts of God and man, and love of man, Triumphant over all those loathsome sights Of wretchedness and vice, […]
“Our prehistory now has its poet laureate.” – Barry Cunliffe, Oxford University Download readings from the book below, or read an essay about the book. US readers can order copies directly from me here: UK and worldwide readers, order directly from The High Window Press here Passing through more than thirty thousand years of history, the changing spiritual and material […]
My poetry collection Bone Antler Stone—a panorama of ancient Europe from the painted caves of Lascaux to contact with Greece and Rome—comes out on Thursday. You can order it here. Below are readings of three of those poems, inspired by a tidal island, a museum, and a Viking cathedral on the island of Orkney, all combined with photos and videos […]
My poetry collection Bone Antler Stone—a panorama of ancient Europe from the painted caves of Lascaux to contact with Greece and Rome—comes out on Thursday. You can order it here. Here’s an essay on how it came to be written: The poems of Bone Antler Stone go way back, as a book about ancient history probably should. My way in […]
Excerpts from Book 7 of Wordsworth’s 1805 Prelude, on his time living in London. Other excerpts are here. Above all, one thought Baffled my understanding, how men lived Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still Strangers, and not knowing each other’s names. Book 7, 117-120 Shall I give way, Copying the impression of the memory – […]
Originally posted on Underfoot Poetry:
At the Grave of Randall Jarrell The clunk and rasp of building a wood fire distracts but warms me. You love the grunt and groan of chores, talking to the cats, paying bills we can’t afford to pay. Meanwhile I’m picturing a pair of cypress almost doubled over with ice in a North Carolina graveyard.…
Excerpts from Book 6 of Wordsworth’s 1805 Prelude, on his friendship with Coleridge. Other excerpts are here. There is no grief, no sorrow, no despair, No languor, no dejection, no dismay, No absence scarcely can there be, for those Who love as we do. Book 6, 253-256 I too have been a wanderer, but, alas, How different is the […]
From Bearing the Names of Many/The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, just as illness and war are spreading: People are committing suicide all over the place. I am enjoying this in part because the people killing themselves were the type, only a year ago, most likely to condemn suicides as evil, as cowards, as cruel to themselves and to their […]
Originally posted on Underfoot Poetry:
Nothing of Me on the Moon The moon where I live sucks up all darkness, it’s a pond upside down. The moon that I know casts a circle of brightness, a Chinese lantern in the sky. Like a pot of honey never falling, she just sits there, waiting for my glance. I no longer ask…
Back when I used to do a lot of readings, I would start out by sharing somebody else’s work, and I realize that I should do the equivalent of that with the release of my book of stories, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old. The person that comes to mind is the late William Trevor, whose Last Stories was […]
I usually don’t feel like I’m a dirty liberal at all while reading The New Criterion, a conservative version of those magazines that seem to see themselves as the preserver of what might be called “high” culture, curating it almost as if for a future age that will care about it a little more. Recently I’ve found a reappraisal of […]
Here are only some of the songs and pieces of music that meant the most to me when writing the stories for The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old: While I only saw it after many of the stories were finished, the documentary Kurt Cobain: About a Son captures what I hoped to do with my lonely people: Kurt Cobain […]
My book of short stories, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, is now available. My essay on the book is here. Order it directly from the publisher, Square, Small Press Distribution, and Amazon. Ebook links here. Please consider ordering directly from the publisher or Square. Each of the twelve stories is told by an unnamed narrator, among them a […]
There are a lot of lonely people out there, and with my collection of stories The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old coming out on Monday (you can order it directly from the publisher, Square, Small Press Distribution, and Amazon), I want to write for a moment about why I devoted an entire book to them. Each of the twelve […]
