This is my cat, Freya: Don’t be fooled by her incredible cuteness; if you look closely around the eyes you can see the crazy demon hell-beast lurking within. Freya is seven pounds of psychotic, terrifying cat piss just waiting to soil your favorite pair of shoes….or in my case, anything that looks like it could remotely cost me my security deposit. For almost two years, roommate faintingviolet and I have endured a perpetual minefield of pee-pee pads and decoy litter boxes shoved in what we hoped […]
“What’s life for?”
Shortly after Leonard Cohen died, I was wandering through a Half-Price Books when I stumbled upon a couple of his books of poetry. I picked up 2006’s Book of Longing as tribute to the artist. Fortuitously, NPR’s Terry Gross recently re-released a 2006 interview with Cohen about this very book. I listened to the interview concurrently with my own reading and wrestling with the text. The context for the book that the interview provided was helpful: Cohen wrote a large chunk of Longing while living at a Zen […]
The Hidden Chamber
I got on the library queue for this book because I knew that it contains “The Monarch of the Glen,” which is the novella follow-up to American Gods. I am committed to my American Gods love, and wanted to complete my library of knowledge of all things Shadow. But this book, oh, this wonderful book. It’s a collection of some of the most beautiful poetry and short stories, in perfect Gaiman-ian language, set in dark landscapes that are undeniably his. I could pick these works […]
Honey a Day
I so loved Amal El-Mohtar’s story in The Starlit Woods that I went searching for other books by her. Sadly, it seems that most of her writing is in the form of short stories for various anthologies, however there was this collection of poems and short stories. I picked it up, and it’s quite good. I enjoyed the short stories a bit more then the poetry, but I’m a bit out of practice with poetry. El-Mohtar was given a sampling of honey and she spread […]
Poems for young women
Since I had read The Gutsy Girl by Caroline Paul, Amazon recommended Courage: Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls (2014) ed. by Karen Finneyfrock, Rachel McKibbens, and Mindy Nettifee. I don’t know how advanced Amazon’s software is for these kinds of recommendations, but it worked. I was intrigued and ordered the book from my library. This book is very different from The Gutsy Girl, which is a story of Paul’s adventures and encouragement for younger girls to get out there and do things. Courage, on the other hand, is […]
This silver fox can write poems.
The two places that I learn about poetry are my local library and Half-Price Books. For free, I can browse the poetry section and choose colorful hardcovers and well-worn paperbacks. If the book isn’t for me, it’s no loss. If it is for me, hurrah! The last stack of books that I grabbed included Robert Pinsky’s Gulf Music. While the cover initially attracted me, Pinsky’s writing is virtuosic. He has a dazzling ability to craft word music that concisely yet artfully expresses big ideas. More than once, I said, […]