Dear Vox Populi subscribers,
At 7pm tonight the official launch of American Ash, my new collection of poems published by Ragged Sky, is happening. I’ll be reading with two wonderful poets — Joan Bauer and Richard St. John.
Michael Simms: The Story of Autumn House Press (1998-2020)
Most literary presses fade away when the founder leaves, so I cannot tell you how much it thrills me that AHP continues into the second generation.
Richard St. John: The Chorus
Sees the women led to ships, and weeps.
Works at the deli counter, evening shift.
Richard St. John: Reading Shaw’s Play, St. Joan at the Solstice, on a Greyhound, Heading Home
The year comes round again, with its own dark fairness. Out on the turnpike, flecks of sleet. Lightning through night clouds, ghostly, then stark. Echo of thunder. In the tabloid … Continue reading
Richard St. John: December, New Millennium
So warm, the hedges almost bloom, though the jagged skeletons of fake, electric icicles are twined along a front-yard chain-link fence. In the windows, faded Steelers signs, tribal gear still … Continue reading
Richard St. John: Pluto 2
After the action of the International Astronomers Union 8/24/06 . Poor Pluto, icy stone, never so lovely as Venus or possessing Jupiter’s pull. Dragging along your equal moon, that old … Continue reading
Richard St. John: Abhorrent Things
You shall not eat any abhorrent thing….of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cleft you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, … Continue reading
Richard St. John: Argos
How had he looked to her when he’d come home? He didn’t know, what with the way the gods were forever cloaking men in mist, giving the old a … Continue reading
Richard St. John: Maria’s Song
An old story: the girl was pregnant, had spent the night on the streets of Washington. It looked like she’d come for a green card, or maybe to get warm … Continue reading
Richard St. John: A Blessing in Baltimore
You must take another way…. – Inferno I . The old South Boston Aquarium stands In a Sahara of snow now. – For the Union Dead . The seventh apartment … Continue reading
Richard St. John: Learning with the Lost
You taught us Dante: On a dike above
a burning plain, he peers at the charred and upturned face
of his own teacher, but the face I see is yours.
Richard St. John: The Sparrows of Bahrain
Behind Beit Al Qur’an – its thirteen centuries of texts enshrined in glass, where you can see beneath a lens the holy verses on a grain of rice – the … Continue reading
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