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Roman Bridge [by Donald Revell]
One image the epidemic paintsOnto the old mind: a Roman bridge,Intact and defaced, slowingThe brown flood below it. The old mindHad a use for water and for the gods in it.Waterborne or airborne, epidemicIs…
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Sometimes You Get Lucky [by David Lehman]
Sometimes you get luckyand get to adoptHarold Arlen and Jerome Kernas Uncle Harry and Uncle Jerryin the choir of the synagogueyou went to as a boy. I heard the tekiya of the shofarin the…
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John Ashbery explains “These Lacustrine Cities” on Bruce Kawin’s Radio Show (1966)
Jeff Hipsher has posted this excellent interview that Bruce Kawin conducted with John Ashbery in 1966. At the time Bruce hosted a half-hour radio show, "Literary Workshop," on WKCR, Columbia's radio station. (He was…
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“Ce moment bizarre”: a note on confinement and afterwards [by Tracy Danison]
A Tale from the Decameron (1916) by John William Waterhouse On Wednesday, 2 April, the number of Covid-19 cases in France as a whole, formally diagnosed in an institution or with symptoms serious enough to get…
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from “Julius Jaffe: the Analects” (2) [by Mitch Sisskind]
FOUR ATTRIBUTES OF A TZADDIKHerman Fishman asked, "Was ShlomoPutchkis a tzaddik?" Julius Jaffe replied,"No, because Shlomo Putchkis did notpossess the four attributes of a tzaddik." He continued, "A tzaddik must comefrom a lineage of…
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“Comparative Fates” [by David Lehman]
Today I had the unexpected pleasure of finding a poem that I forgot I wrote and published. This appeared in Smartish Pace, issue #15, edited by the redoubtable Stephen Reichert: Comparative Fates I choose…
