Last Friday night, in bed with a cup of chamomile tea, I finished the last chapter of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet. What a rush, I thought, staring at the wooden end of an exhausted incense stick on my desk; what a rush, despite the peace around me. I closed the […]
The girl facing me was called Conchela. She had a heart-shaped face and a ponytail so tightly pulled back that it was hard to tell where her forehead ended and her hairline receded. She seemed real at first, but later I came to learn the only thing real about her […]
*Art: Neva river by Igor Dubovoy • Russia carved a seal upon my head. • For months, maybe years, the biggest oddest reddest whitest bluest most fascinating country in the world (at the time, still today?) had called to me (2). Here she was, for a she she was, […]
You have to be a poet to do just about anything. You have to be a poet to translate another’s words. Only poets care enough about language to clearly convey one person’s thought to a different person’s understanding. Any other type of translator will blur the message. The best […]
The Summer Abroad — now available on KINDLE. Purchase here. Did you buy it? Good. On the fence? Let me tell you a story. Perhaps it’ll help you make up your mind. So, storytime. Gather ’round the fire. (Wood crackles. Embers spark. And a wolf howls in brisk autumn […]
This morning I assigned my students two simple writing prompts, exercising the present tense. They had to use the words “as soon as,” “first,” “next,” “then,” “before/after,” and “when.” We all learned. For example, I realized, as I chalked the prompts on the blackboard, that “when” plays as the middle […]
Three dark themes stalk this journey into self-publishing: Bursts of tinkering, troubleshooting, and anxiety. Of course there are luminous elements holding hands with me as we progress. But those lights shine in between and at the end of the journey. Last Friday, I received the edited draft from […]
Wouldn’t it be nice to dive a little deeper, to investigate, to engage? Curiosity can sometimes feel like holding our breath, but at least this way we can swim down into a deep subject, without swallowing any water. Metaphors enough. For this weekend’s post the idea of interviewing a […]
A buddy sent me this sketch from College Humor last Sunday, which satirizes the stereotypes Americans have against New Yorkers. My favorite part was the joke about NYC getting criticized more than any other city. “Nobody ever talks shit about Cincinnati,” says the man from Ohio. “That’s actually […]
The stories we tell ourselves set the standards we live by. The love stories from the title, which are three, are to come. But first, a joust. An architect, a cook, and a writer walk up to a British immigration officer. This is literally what happened when our father, […]
4.0 out of 5 stars Purchase, learn, reflect. Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2018 After viewing this documentary, I can only say one thing, a single word echoed various times near the end, the answer to the question asked of friends and of colleagues of Maryla Mikalowsi-Dyamant, […]
This week, I met with an ex-workshop peer from way back (from last year). She is currently working on her own thesis project, which explores the current fiction-workshop model, how it fosters or damages originality, and what universities can do about it. Having participated in the same workshop ourselves, she […]
Pasó así, Papá, y aunque pese, como lo viví te lo narro, en inglés: Completely cut off from chance, no hope, only needs and responsibilities. I got home at 1 PM from working a four-hour at the language school. I would talk about that shift later in the day, […]
Ice cream. Outer space. Reflex. Lombok, Indonesia. LCD Soundsystem. Bullseye. Zeker. Mosque. Date. По-русски. Brighton Beach. Vial. Malachite. Autobiography. Vanidades. Superman. Zelda. Sk8ter boi. Summer. Twentysomething. Yawp. Kebab. Kiss. Two-hundred hungry loud Texans. Moons. Gray-whiskered and rough. Argos. Estrangement. Imperceptible smile. Low gravity. Cigarette. Astronomy. Burnt-orange bag. Black Hercules. Queso. Parallax […]
This new work schedule, teaching mornings-afternoons-and-evenings, has me standing before a class of eager language learners about forty hours a week, breaks in between classes, so that is most days leaving the house at 6:30 a.m. and coming back at 9 o’clock at night. It ain’t easy, though thrilling, but […]
“At a distance, you only see my light / Come closer, and know that I am you” RUMI Distance. Distance. Poem or essay or lyric on Distance. What are your thoughts, philosophical or not, on such a topic? [Preamble concludes, deflate the diaphragm, let in air.] That’s […]
Relative Genitive is a brilliant book, presenting the original work of poet-translator Val Vinokur, alongside his translations of works by two of the 20th century’s most influential Russian poets, Osip Mendalstam and Vladimir Mayakovsky. Seriously, full of tasty sounds and bright woven text, simply brilliant. I should know, I was […]
photo by Bert Kaufmann via Flickr When you think of travel, good food, and adventure, who do you think of? Do you have time to wonder? Take out your boarding pass. Go. Entry point: Lisboa, Portugal. June 2018. (Exit port, supposedly, the same city, two months later.) […]
Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for visiting this page. Some of you will notice there has been some inactivity as a result of one’s being inactive inactively for a minute here on this blog, yup me, allowing the days to produce only a lack of content, let’s just say. […]
For the prompt and for featuring my poem August 7th on the following article: https://theamericanscholar.org/how-to-cheat/#.W3g0AcInbIU ∀ Clothes pins, presumably, because of how these poems were pinned up one by one