Monthly Archives: October 2011

Halloween Pumpkins

Each year the Sunfrost farm stand in Woodstock displays an amazing array of jack-o’-lanterns. The crude faces I carved as a boy with a kitchen knife—two triangular eyes and a rectangular mouth with a tooth—have given away to intricate carvings … Continue reading

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Halloween Pumpkins

Are Poetry Books Cursed?

To curse your book print “Poems” on the cover. I kid you not. At flea markets and library fairs I’ve displayed copies of Walking Woodstock and Love in the City of Grudges side by side, and I’ve watched people’s eyes … Continue reading

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Are Poetry Books Cursed?

Zombies and 9/11

Among the most perceptive things I’ve learned from my Night of the Living Dead studies is that director George Romero was a 1950s teenage fan of E.C. Comics, which featured graphic horror stories until U.S. Senate hearings in 1954 forced … Continue reading

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Zombies and 9/11

Zombie PhD, thanks to Bobbi Katz

Among the many witty and endearing details of Bobbi Katz’s book for the child in all of us, The Monsterologist: A Memoir in Rhyme, is one that nobody but me seems to have noticed. First, give Bobbi her due. The … Continue reading

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Zombie PhD, thanks to Bobbi Katz

Marilyn Crispell performs for the late poet Frank Parker

My friend, Marilyn Crispell, the jazz pianist, leads a bifurcated life. In Woodstock, where she’s lived for thirty years, she’s a homebody kept busy by errands and chores, which includes spending hours on the computer arranging her concert tours. She … Continue reading

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Marilyn Crispell performs for the late poet Frank Parker

The Nude Zombie You’ll Never Forget

At first, the young filmmakers shooting Night of the Living Dead wanted to keep their terror pure. Neither the survivors in a farmhouse boarded up in defense against the ghouls out on the lawn nor the audience would know what … Continue reading

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Nude Zombie You’ll Never Forget

Stephen Crane: Pioneering Zombie Poet

A year ago on the Monday night before Halloween, I read my zombie poems at the Harmony Cafe in Woodstock, a bar with a stage off to the side of a Chinese restaurant that’s more fun than its name implies. … Continue reading

Posted in Poems | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Stephen Crane: Pioneering Zombie Poet

To Emma Segal, by Susan Shapiro

(As Michael Perkins and I walked and wrote Walking Woodstock, we found uncanny parallels in our lives. Surely the saddest was the deaths, weeks apart, of his sister, Linda Gabriel, and my former wife, Emma Segal, both of whom we … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on To Emma Segal, by Susan Shapiro

The Other Reading Room

Was it Marshall Karp who introduced me to the euphemistic notion of the other reading room? Maybe not, but he did have a clever way of saying, when we bumped into each other outside Woodstock Meats, that he was enjoying … Continue reading

Posted in Poems | Comments Off on The Other Reading Room

Further Thoughts on Memoir in Poetry

(Michel Perkins has told me that every single “I” in his book, Carpe Diem: New and Selected Poems, is a different person. Yet readers, myself included, would assume that Michael is offering his own wisdom under his “I.” He is, … Continue reading

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Further Thoughts on Memoir in Poetry