American Sonnet for the New Year things got terribly ugly incredibly quickly things got ugly embarrassingly quickly actually things got ugly unbelievably quickly honestly things got ugly seemingly infrequently initially […]

A Cento by Nancy Issenman Say Yes Sniff the naked page It is time to praise! white ash, sassafras so beautiful on the tongue waves of language across the skin […]

The Hero’s Journey I remember the first time I looked at the spotless marble floor of a giant hotel lobby and understood that someone had waxed and polished it all […]

Archaic Torso of Apollo We cannot know his legendary head with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso is still suffused with brilliance from inside, like a lamp, in […]

                  from How To Draw A Perfect Circle ………..Before that day the officer had never fired his gun In the line of […]

A man I once asked a question of has died; his son sends a letter A thirsty mouse turns a river. a stone turns a river. Bodiless Words turn us. […]

                  from GOD IS AN AMERICAN Yes, I have a pretty good idea what beauty is. It survives all right. It aches […]

At the 2013 Palm Beach Poetry Festival, the American poet Jane Hirschfield (1953 -)  was asked to pick a poem that had inspired her.  She demurred by saying she owed most to […]