Back in the day–when I was earning an MFA from the University of Washington–I knew Joanie Mackowski. She was clearly a rising star even then and I have kept my eye on her. This book, The Zoo (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002), won the 2000 Associated Writing Program Award in Poetry. I have a signed […]
How can I possibly write about Dorianne Laux without gushing? This book qualifies for my series this month (poetry books I’ve been meaning to read cover-to-cover) because, in 2013, when she was the keynote speaker at Litfuse in Tieton, I came home with a whole stack of books, and I suspect this one got lost […]
I had a lot of driving to do today, and fortunately I remembered that I have this book, Li-Young Lee‘s Behind My Eyes (Norton, 2008), which includes a CD of the poet reading 22 of the poems. So I listened (a lovely experience), and read, too, and eventually made it through the entire book — and it’s 10:30 […]
I met Edward O’Dwyer at On the Nail, in Limerick last October, after we had both read on the open mike following the featured readers. He was curious about my book, and I about his, Bad News, Good News, Bad News (Salmon Poetry, 2017), so we traded. His book has a beautiful cover, and he wrote a really lovely […]