Black Earth Institue: Social Distancing
Date: June 4, 2020
In dreams I walk through crowds, brushing arms, knocking elbows. Skin to skin: hands are bare. Crocuses congregate in beds, along sidewalks. Unlatching city gates,
Date: June 4, 2020
In dreams I walk through crowds, brushing arms, knocking elbows. Skin to skin: hands are bare. Crocuses congregate in beds, along sidewalks. Unlatching city gates,
Date: June 4, 2020
A flare of russet,green fronds, surpriseof flush againstthe bare grey cypressin winter woods. Cardinal wild pine,quill-leaf airplantor dog-drink-water.Spikes of bright bloom–exotic plumage.
Date: June 4, 2020
“Be stubborn and ultimately believe in your writing,” advises first-time novelist Mia Heavener ’00, “especially if you are having crappy writing days.” On April 13, Heavener visited Wyn Kelley’s literature […]
Date: June 4, 2020
Tess Taylor’s new poetry collection Rift Zone is published this month. She shares five books about writing place in a time of crisis.
Date: June 4, 2020
Poet Tess Taylor questioned what it means to be creative, when every day feels like a radical reinvention of life. “These days, helping myself and my family steer a way around sadness, […]
Date: June 4, 2020
LINCOLN, Neb. — My mother was born into a flu-stricken household at the height of the pandemic of 1918. Within minutes she was swaddled in a homemade quilt and placed […]
Date: June 4, 2020
1985 Long and black, the streaksof gray, aflutter in the lightwind as she prepares to tell her story at the Federal Building:reaching into a tattered sackshe pulls out a doll […]
Date: June 4, 2020
The Skin of Meaning He was late to the party and without directions,though his invitation was secure, and his instinctskeenly honed to an acceptable edge, and as we arewaiting to […]
Date: June 4, 2020
Ascension Didi Jackson The blue jays lay claimto the raspberry busharriving in groups of four or five:one holds a rubied berry in its beakand feeds it up in the white […]
Date: June 4, 2020
after Käthe Kollwitz I heard they no longer sew eyelids of the dead shut.At the morgue, I busied myself countingthe lacerations on my husband’s neck and wrists.I wore sunglasses and […]
Date: October 3, 2011
In August 2011 The Midwest Book Review's Wisconsin Bookwatch wrote about John Barr's book of poems. "The Hundred Fathom Curve is John Barr's exploration of Americana from the perspectives of […]
Date: October 3, 2011
Poet Sasha West examines the language of Amy Randolph in Randolph's book Cold Angel of Mercy. "Randolph's crisp, searing voice is evident in her facility with image." —Sasha West
Date: October 3, 2011
In the sixty-fourth volume of The Hudson Review, Peter Makuck praises William Trowbridge's book, Ship of Fool. "William Trowbridge's Ship of Fool had me laughing out loud . . . […]
Date: September 30, 2011
“My favorite poems here include the title poem about a talisman stone that emblemizes the omnipresence of past time, ‘Something Old,’ ‘Someone’s Father,’ the bitterly ironic ‘Fish to Fry,’ ‘Trucks […]
Date: August 2, 2011
At first glance Jim Tilleys In Confidence seems to consist of calm, graceful poems of upper middle class domesticity, but turkey vultures wait in the yard and many stories have […]
Date: August 2, 2011
"Driven and powerful writing in play format, Among the Goddesses is an excellent read and a first pick for literary fiction and poetry collections." The full review can be seen
Date: August 1, 2011
Among the Goddesses is a bold experiment. Magical, mystical, musical, it charts a woman's journey that reverses the journey of Odysseus. What is it to be aided by goddesses, if […]
Date: August 1, 2011
In yet another variation of a vampire love story, Eidus (The War of the Rosens) introduces Lilith Zeremba, a college freshman who has declared herself, over and over, to be […]
Date: July 31, 2011
Fiction is subject to viruses, and the vampire bug strikes the unlikeliest writers. Witty and incisive Eidus (The War of the Rosens, 2007) has always drawn our attention to the […]
Date: July 31, 2011
In Jim Tilley's In Confidence, we see the internal and external workings of the world through a mature poets multifaceted lens. Crafting his poems with formal care, Tilley always aims […]