Category: articles
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Running a Book Club Well
Today for BOTH Western Canonball AND Myths, Legends, Folklore and Tall Tales, I’m posting a recording of a panel I was on at Heliosphere 2019 on Running a Book Club Well (the program called it “Tips for your Kickass Book Club”). The panel featured Carol Gyzander,Philip De Parto, Lauren Paradise,Eric Parmer. It ventured into nearly…
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Arabic Coffee As A Treat
“Arapska kahva u Americi” Translated From Croatian by Mario Frömml Abdullah is a student, originally from Saudi Arabia. He immigrated to America three years ago. I have never met a Saudi up until now. This one being a student, soon to defend his Master’s thesis on the topic of underage delinquency and child abuse in…
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Schadenfyre Festival
The promotional video of Fyre Festival opens with an overhead shot of a small island surrounded by the blueish swirls of the Caribbean. A voiceover drones, “The actual experience exceeds all expectations.” Come this way, honored Odysseus, great glory of the Achaians, and stay your ship, so that you can listen here to our singing;…
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The Parade
Thesis, my parade of visions Chariots doing donuts in the light cut away the dangles, I am no longer attached to them attached yet to me, as my eyes begin to pin Maestro Geppetto forgot to tell me that he made me out of wood in a world of flesh-made things i did the best…
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12 poetry literary agents
As I’m finishing up my fifth novel, the time has come for me to search once more for literary agents and it turns out that some of them are listed as poetry literary agents. I know. I didn’t think those existed anymore either. It seems kind of pointless for me to put in all of…
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The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The first lines of a work are important. They get the piece moving, they set the tone for the work, they introduce us to the authorial voice. Think of some of the most memorable first lines. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”[1] “Call me Ishmael.”[2] “It is a truth universally acknowledged,…
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What I do is me: the sonnet
I recently attended a Jeffersonian dinner where we all brought sonnets and read them aloud in turn. We had a lovely time with Shakespeare, Keats, and a crowd-sourced cento. I might or might not have asked the class—er, table of adults—what the two types of sonnets are. I’m incorrigible. To wit: the sonnet is a…
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Mother at Home
Off the bus from school, / the picture window’s curtain is drawn. / So, you’re there on the couch. / I can hear the sound of soft moaning / before I go in. Say: I’m home. Hello. Goodbye. Ask: Can I tell you that I’m sick, / because sick / is what you are? /…
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Out of Lethe
I awake into the midst of life, half spent and losing ground. The blue is turning over my head. Words are wan and shuddering. I see someone I should have known but their face is void and scattered. Sound…
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The Kindergarten
“Obdanište” Translated From Croatian by Mario Frömml Within a year and five months I did not spot scruffy mutts holding up dumpsters growling under the bridges over a tossed bone over a dry hideaway howling sadly around the kindling neither rabid bitches roaming the streets at odd hours biting at everything crossing them nor an…
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Curated Podcasts from a Busy Coffee Shop
My workday requires 10-12 hours of nearly constant attention, which means if I’m going to listen and learn, I need a curated podcasts list. I run a coffee shop. I have a thousand breaks a day between customers, but they last 30 seconds at a time. This type of work is not right for consuming…
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Circling the Light
Through the mechitza, that guardian of modesty, I watch brothers, father, plus grandfather dance, They grow wings while spiraling with our Torah. Under the chuppah, sandwiched between imot, I twirl around my chatan. We’ll foster a home From the covenant and our worship of Hashem. Eyes fastened, I pull my fingers toward me, My Shabbat…