May 28, 2018 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Past Notes, Poetry
Last spring, I had the pleasure of spending an evening with Charif Shanahan at the AWP conference, when we were both invited readers for a reading sponsored by our publishers. I’m excited that his poem Ligament appeared in The New York Times Magazine in the...
May 7, 2018 | Current Ned Note, Past Notes, Poetry
Maria Hummel’s book House And Fire was the winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize, 2013. “Station” is a pantoum, a Malay verse form, imitated in French and English, consisting of quotations. by Maria Hummel Days you are sick, we get dressed...
Apr 28, 2018 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Past Notes, Poetry
To celebrate Arbor Day 2018 I’m celebrating Arbor Day by posting a poem about trees. The Trees by Philip Larkin The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they...
Apr 17, 2018 | Current Ned Note, Past Notes, Poetry
by Alberto Ríos The library is dangerous— Don’t go in. If you do You know what will happen. It’s like a pet store or a bakery— Every single time you’ll come out of there Holding something in your arms. Those novels with their big eyes. And those no-nonsense, all...
Apr 11, 2018 | Current Ned Note, On Writing, Past Notes, Poetry
(posted on Mark Strand’s birthday – April 11, 1934) What of the neighborhood homes awash In a silver light, of children hunched in the bushes, Watching the grown-ups for signs of surrender, Signs that the irregular pleasures of moving From day to day, of...
Mar 17, 2018 | Current Ned Note, Past Notes, Poetry
by Larry Levis Whenever I listen to Billie Holiday, I am reminded That I, too, was once banished from New York City. Not because of drugs or because I was interesting enough For any wan, overworked patrolman to worry about— His expression usually a great, gauzy...