Author Archive for: bethaot2

About Bethany

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Entries by Bethany

Tina Barr, PINK MOON

June 21, 2024 /0 Comments/in Reading /by Bethany

You can find this week’s poetry book review at Escape Into Life — just follow this link: https://www.escapeintolife.com/book-reviews/pinkmoon100888/ Yes, I know I’m behind, but I’ll be back next week with more.

Adam Zagajewski, TRUE LIFE

June 9, 2024 /4 Comments/in Poetry, Reading /by Bethany

TRUE LIFE, Adam Zagajewski, trans. Clare Cavanaugh. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 120 Broadway, New York 10271, 2019, 80 pages, $16 paper, www.fsgbooks.com. I have been a fan of Adam Zagajewski’s poetry ever since his “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” appeared in the New Yorker the week after 9/11. I bought his selected poems, Without End […]

Sandra Noel, WHAT THE PAIN LEFT

June 1, 2024 /0 Comments/in Healing, Poetry, Reading /by Bethany

WHAT THE PAIN LEFT, Sandra Noel. Kelsay Books, 502 South 1040 East, A-119, American Fork, Utah 84003, 2024, 56 pages, $20 paper, Kelsaybooks.com. Although it is always a pleasure to read poems by Vashon Island poet Sandra Noel, this book felt very different from the two I have previously reviewed, Hawk Land (2022) and The Gypsy […]

Good Poetry for Hard Times

May 14, 2024 /7 Comments/in aging, Healing, Poetry, Reading, Writing /by Bethany

I have mentioned my upcoming class, Good Poetry for Hard Times, to you before, and posted the announcement on my Home page with other events, but this evening I’m taking a moment to promote it again. In short: My Creative Retirement Institute (CRI) class begins May 24 and continues for a total of four Fridays, […]

Blog

What RemainsDecember 22, 2024 - 3:35 am
Over the last few days, I’ve taken some very long walks, several naps, and I’ve read What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt, trans. and edited by Samantha Rose Hill with Genese Grill (LiverightPubl, 2025). It is being hailed as “a landmark literary event.” The poems, presented in the original German and in English, […]
Necessary LightDecember 14, 2024 - 3:56 am
It is Friday the 13th, probably too late in the day for this to post as 12/13/24, but that’s the date on which I am writing. I have been in a strange, estranged state of late. Not that I haven’t worked. At times I’ve worked obsessively. I made progress on the mystery novel, then I […]
Books for WritersNovember 30, 2024 - 11:33 pm
Before I forget, earlier this month I reviewed Martha Silano’s award-winning new book, This One We Call Ours, for Raven Chronicles. You can read the review here. The holidays are upon us, and if you have a writer-friend, perhaps you’re wondering what book you should buy for them. Along these lines of thought, someone […]
WE HAD OUR REASONS, Ricardo RuizNovember 23, 2024 - 1:57 am
Business as usual seems beyond me right now, and I’m daily amazed by the advertisements that make their way into my email-inbox—including from writers merrily chirping about new classes and life changing strategies for writing “your next best-seller!” But here’s me. Dropping some of my 2024 goals, downsizing from the usual blog reviews, but still […]
Victoria Doerper, WHAT IF WE ALL BLOOMED?November 14, 2024 - 6:52 pm
WHAT IF WE ALL BLOOMED? POEMS OF NATURE, LOVE, AND AGING, Victoria Doerper. Penchant Press International, Bellingham, WA, 2019, 94 pages, paper, $15.95. What If We All Bloomed? is a perfect title for this book of meditative poems. Here’s a poet who can celebrate marriage in one poem, and claim kinship with frogs in the […]
When Artists Go to WorkNovember 9, 2024 - 10:40 pm
I meant to show up today to do a blog-review/appreciation of Ada Limón’s 2011 collection of poems, Sharks in the River. It felt like appropriate reading for this week. (And, indeed, it is.) A woman of color, our national poet laureate. The problem being, I can’t seem to pull a review together. Time is not […]
Election DayNovember 5, 2024 - 6:25 pm
I know I have been strangely silent about the U. S. election — in this venue at least. My family of origin used to be decent, working-class Republicans. Something I didn’t even know until I discovered how much my father admired Ronald Reagan. Now they are die-hard MAGA Republicans. It hurts my heart. If I […]
Jed Myers, LEARNING TO HOLDNovember 2, 2024 - 5:34 pm
LEARNING TO HOLD, Jed Myers. Wandering Aengus Press, Eastsound, WA, 100 pages, paper, $18.60, https://wanderingaenguspress.com. I have a soft spot for any book published by Wandering Aengus Press—their publications include the anthology, For Love of Orcas, a gorgeous tribute book published in 2019. Jed Myers’s Learning to Hold won the Wandering Aengus Press Editors’ Award, […]
Paulann Petersen’s MY KINDREDOctober 27, 2024 - 12:19 am
MY KINDRED, Paulann Petersen. Salmon Poetry Press, Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland, 2023, 108 pages, paper, $14.95, salmonpoetry.com. I read My Kindred in August. I was sprawled on the guest bed in my friend’s daughter’s house in a suburb of Portland, Oregon. Everyone else was napping (baby, grandma, mama). I was basking in the light of […]
Sheila Sondik’s LIGHTING UP THE DUFFOctober 19, 2024 - 2:38 am
LIGHTING UP THE DUFF, Sheila Sondik. The Poetry Box, Portland, OR, 2024, 48 pages, paper, $14.00, https://thepoetrybox.com. I love this chapbook by Bellingham poet and printmaker Sheila Sondik. I read it before publication and wrote one of the cover blurbs. I read it again during the Sealey Challenge in August. And again, today. New delights […]