Monthly Archives: November 2011

“Read Local”: My Holiday Appeal

Among the nicest gifts I received this year were two heartfelt appraisals of my poetry books by Marc Schuster of Small Press Reviews. Many critics love to show off their smarts, but not so many share their real feelings as … Continue reading

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The Early Saga of the Bald Eagles on the Ashokan Reservoir

(This early chapter in the saga of the Bald Eagles who nest at the Ashokan Reservoir—a story that is both triumph and soap opera—appeared in the September 4, 1997 Woodstock Times.) As manager of the Lazy Meadow motel on Route … Continue reading

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Saul Bennett Memorial Poetry Books at the Woodstock Library

My late friend and poetry ally, Saul Bennett, was a library hound. I still remember walking back to the poetry section then in the Siberian corner of the building on a slow afternoon to find Saul already there, doing what … Continue reading

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The Chronogram Poets: Molly McGlennen

(“McGlennen’s title belies the grandeur and tragedy of these diverse and deft lyrics about Native Americans. The author, who is part Anishinaabe, is, like her subjects, rooted in their majestic respect for the ordinary… These poems are elegiac and heart-rending,” … Continue reading

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The Chronogram Poets: George Quasha

(“English owes its magisterial authority to poets like George Quasha. He finds its frontiers and surveys them. But he is concerned with more than the aeronautics of words—he choreographs their dance with his ideas,” writes Djelloul Marbrook in his Chronogram … Continue reading

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The Chronogram Poets: Barbara Louise Ungar

(Reviewing Barbara Louise Ungar’s Charlotte Bronte, You Ruined My Life for the November Chronogram poetry roundup, Lee Gould observed that “Ungar’s far-reaching third collection treats, in various ways, failed love…Although heart-wrenching and sometimes angry, the poems are witty and always … Continue reading

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The Chronogram Poets: Barbara Blatner

(Reviewing Barbara Blatner’s The Still Position in the November Chronogram roundup, Lee Gould writes that “Blatner addresses her dying mother in a verse memoir of unflinching physicality: In these vivid imagistic poems, we see the weakening mother become a swamped … Continue reading

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The Chronogram Poets: Matthew J. Spireng

(In the November Chronogram poetry roundup, Djelloul Marbrook writes of Matthew J. Spireng’s What Focus Is: “Spireng is a poet of place, space, and creatureliness–the book begins with a drowning horse and ends with a pigeon attending a poetry festival. … Continue reading

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The Chronogram Poets: Anna Moschovakis

(“These wise poems are warm, often funny, linguistically lively, and beautiful,” writes Lee Gould of Anna Moschovakis’ new book, You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake, in the November Chronogram poetry roundup. On Sunday, November 27th Moschovakis will read … Continue reading

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The Chronogram Poets: Dennis Doherty

(Of Dennis Doherty’s Crush Test Nina Shengold writes in the November Chronogram poetry roundup, “He sings the body electric in language both startling and muscular, from the ecstatic recollection of ‘the god-gathered elate bodysurf lift’ to the blunt ‘Mud and … Continue reading

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