Most Recent Posts

King Lear by William Shakespeare

Directed by Sam Gold

Broadway: Cort Theatre, 138 W. 48^th St., New York, NY

Reviewed by Scott Klavan on May 17, 2019

The expression “He who yells is wrong” came to mind more …

Fog Is Pouring Over History, hand-embroidered cotton on cotton, 25.5″ x 19.5″, 2018

You Confused My Heart, hand-embroidered cotton on cotton, 12″ x 34″, 2018

Far Over the Sea, hand-embroidered cotton on cotton, 19″ x 22″, 2018…

Pauchi Sasaki, photo by Edi Hirose

Pauchi Sasaki: One-Person Micro-Culture

Part 3 of Classical:NEXT Series

By Dan Ursini © 2019

Pauchi Sasaki is a deeply gifted Peruvian-Japanese composer from Lima. In 2016 she was selected to apprentice under American …

Amanda Gookin & the Forward Music Project

Part 2 of Classical:NEXT Series

By Dan Ursini © 2019

Cellist Amanda Gookin was disturbed because in the classical music culture, social issues are seen as appropriate content for a private chat among …

This morning I saw a female goldfinch in a yellow tree. They matched. That got me wondering: Why aren’t there more green birds?

Okay Google: Why aren’t there more green birds?

Google: There is a lot of green in nature …

Abigail Reynolds, Double Cube Room

Because I Want to Give Them More Than the Small, Gray Stone

of my sorrow, I take them to see the traveling exhibit,
the girl with the pearl on her ear.

I say, Look—the painted …

The Lark

by E. Nesbit

Hutchinson and Co, 1922, Penguin, 2018

reviewed by Seana Graham

Oh, Pallas, take your owl away,

And let us have a lark instead

                    –Thomas Hood  (epigraph)

Although Gore Vidal wrote in a 1964 …

The Energy of Discovery: Composer Emma O’Halloran

By Dan Ursini © 2019

Recently, I was contacted by Classical:NEXT, a big  annual networking event in Europe for Classical/Art/New Music. It is held in the Netherlands in Rotterdam, a great music …

Adam Hunter Caldwell

John Guzlowski

My Mother’s First Winter in Germany

a sonnet

My mother never thought she’d survive
that first winter in the slave labor camps.
She had no coat, no hat, no gloves,
just what she was wearing …

Henny Youngman was the comedian who memorialized the phrase, “take my wife… please!” Come to find out, his wife would laugh along with the crowd at his jokes, even though he made her look, well, not as smart as the …

I love a good political cartoon—always have. I used to read my dad’s Bill Mauldin collections in my youth, and have fairly extensive collections of my own of cartoons by Jeff MacNelly, Pat Oliphant, and Tom Toles. I like the …

Via Basel: The Big House in Baghdad

In the early 1930s my maternal grandfather, Abdul-Ahad, a successful merchant, moved his family from Mosul, his ancestral city, to Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, to expand his business. They lived in …

Dwayne Butcher

A continuation of our celebration of National Poetry Month 2019 with poems about poetry, here by Jennifer Finstrom, who uses them to write about divorce…..

I Confide in the Lady of Shalott about My Divorce

And …

What ails the hemlocks?, copperplate etching, 12.5″ x 12.5″, 2019

What is being eroded?, multiplate copperplate etching, 12.5″ x 12.5″, 2019

What are we stripping away?, zinc etching, 12.5″ x 12.5″, 2019

Is this ‘stabilizing’?, multiplate …

L’Animal dans la decoration

Erica Goss

Inexact

                               An Evening With Marvin Bell, 6/28/16, Eugene, Oregon

The man sitting next to me
wears a pink shirt. His smile
is like a sleek rangy animal.
It makes me greedy and grateful
 
at …

Roxane Elfasci

Music for Music: Clair de Lune and The Enigma

By Dan Ursini ©2019

On YouTube there is a music video of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” which is spellbinding, a rendition of exquisite tenderness.

The number of views is …

Back before the world was surrounded by satellites, back before the internet, back before color television–can you even imagine that far back? There were phones and there was hot-and-cold running water, but there wasn’t television everywhere, especially in rural areas …

Being an activist these days is in vogue again, maybe a revival of the sixties. Some credit probably goes to the Trump phenomena and the high energy reaction. Personally I have not identified myself as such most of my life …

Jeanie Tomanek, Were I But Whole

Angela Narciso Torres

Pantoum with Lines from Lucille Clifton

It’s a long time after, and I just wanted to know.
What was it like on the boat?
I wonder what became of our Mama?…

Some Things That Fly There Be, scratchboard drawing and mixed acrylic painting on claybord, 20″ x 16″, 2018

Our Share of Night to Bear, Our Share of Morning (soldier #3), scratchboard drawing and mixed acrylic painting media on …

Pooja Campbell

Poems and art to help us celebrate and consider International Women’s Day, 2019. Please click on the poets’ and artist’s names to see more of their work.

Risa Denenberg

Whirlwind @ Lesbos

We met in Istanbul
where your …

Becca Stevens, photo credit Harald Krichel CC BY-SA 3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)

Becca Stevens: Visionary As Team Player

By Dan Ursini ©2018

Becca Stevens is a gifted songwriter and arranger, singer and instrumentalist, intent on investigating the full amplitude of …

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time worrying about lies spread on television, radio, cable and online media. This morning I had a grand idea: let’s put warning labels on programs and news feeds to give consumers a way …

In my previous column, I discussed hair types, our common humanity, and the futility of attempting to compartmentalize the black hair experience. Here, I explore the stereotypes and the dangers of conformity. When hair gets tangled in biases and prejudices, …

bed desert, woodcut, 9″ x 11″, 2018

fuji-san from space, woodcut, 10-1/2″ x 8″, 2018

fuji-san is a girl, silkscreen monoprint, 30″ x 22″, 2018

kawaguchiko 1, woodcut, 10″ x 17″, 2018

kawaguchiko 2, woodcut, …

Being a Cub Fan

How many
minutes
of my life
have I spent
with hands
clasped
hoping for one
to go out.

Immortality

          for the left-handed pitcher

He pointed
to me
and said:
never
underestimate
a veteran
who might…

As we enter the third year of being terrorized by our Orange-faced President, it occurred to me that I go through stages of alarm, sort of like the years following the September 11^th terrorist attack. Maybe we should think …

Bo Bartlett, History Lesson

High School Poem

Because it’s Valentine’s Day
My teacher says we ought to read some poems
So she hangs them up all over the school.

In the hallway, a poem about trembling field mice,
A nightingale …

Ione Rucquoi, Bete Noir

It’s almost Valentine’s Day. Please enjoy these unconventional love poems, and look for another valentine to appear here tomorrow. Find more unusual love poems at the end of this mini-anthology via the links to our past …

Scott Kahn

On February 10^th 2006 Chris penned a letter to me on the occasion of my 60^th birthday, four days later (on Valentine’s Day). Because of its length (6 pages) and depth, after briefly perusing it I …

Struck: A Husband’s Memoir of Trauma and Triumph

by Douglas Segal

Prospect Park Books, 2018

reviewed by Seana Graham

In October of 2012, actress Susan Segal was driving home on L.A.’s Hollywood Boulevard after picking up her daughter …

ARTARIANICA is the collaborative effort of Jessy Randall and Briget Heidmous. Jessy writes words. Briget draws.

Briget, born 1989, is an artist and creative entrepreneur. Her website is: www.briget-heidmous.com

Jessy, born 1969, has had poems …

Hair is the most prominent adornment of the human body. Hair, or the lack thereof, is a hallmark of our shared humanity. We take our hair for granted even as we fuss over it. We spend a lot of time, …

A World of Her Own, archival inkjet print, dimensions variable, 2018

Before Breakfast, archival inkjet print, dimensions variable, 2017

Dream Pool, archival inkjet print, dimensions variable, 2018

Later, archival inkjet print, dimensions variable, 2017

Ship of …

To start the year off with a surprise, Dan Ursini, who usually tells us about musicians he finds at YouTube in his Music for Music column, reports today on the visual artist Vera Klement.

Vera Klement’s Woodcuts …

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
by Kathleen Rooney
St. Martin’s Press, 2017

Reviewed by Kim Kishbaugh

Lillian Boxfish is 84 years old (well, truthfully, 85, but what’s a little fib among casual acquaintances?) and facing New Year’s Eve in her …

Eternally Yours, watercolor and acrylics, 2016

Blue Heavens Trio, alcohol inks and acrylics, 2018

Communion of Saints, acrylics, 2012

Stained Glass Saints, watercolors and acrylics, 2013

Messengers of Light, alcohol inks and acrylics, 2018

Golden …

The Waverly Gallery
By Kenneth Lonergan
Directed by Lila Neugebauer
Broadway: Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45^th Street, New York, NY
December 14, 2018

Reviewed by Scott Klavan

Hyperbole makes for lazy criticism, but it’s not extreme to say that …

Well, I see by my current iTunes playlist that it’s that time of year again: that enchanting time when a demigod strides the land, casting a seasoned eye on the children of our hapless race, carefully weighing whether they’ve behaved …

Night Court
by Erica Goss
Glass Lyre Press, 2017
Winner of the 2016 Lyrebird Prize

Reviewed by Kathleen Kirk, EIL Poetry Editor

Gosh, I love poetry. I have been loving these poems by Erica Goss for some time now, and …

My Girl’s Green Jacket
by Mary Meriam
Headmistress Press, 2018

Reviewed by Kathleen Kirk, EIL Poetry Editor

When I read Mary Meriam’s poems in My Girl’s Green Jacket, I am tempted to think, This is someone who lives her …

The day was perfect, sunny with a chill in the air. The wind had slowed down to a gentle breeze and the waves were manageable. “The Neptune,” a comfortable boat we rented, was chugging along at a good clip in …

Matheus Lopes, Manifesto

We congratulate our Pushcart Prize nominees for 2018. Please click the various links to see more poems, features, and award features, and to see more art by Matheus Lopes here at EIL. These poems resonate now, together, …

King Kong
Broadway Theatre, 1681 Broadway, New York, NY

Directed by Drew McOnie

Reviewed by Scott Klavan
November  29, 2018

There’s something missing from the current musical of the classic monster movie King Kong, at the Broadway Theatre. Hard to …

Music for Music: Jacob Being Jacob

By Dan Ursini ©2018

Last year, two songs from Jacob Collier’s debut album, In My Room, won Grammys. One was with an audacious cover of “The Flintstones” theme.

The other Grammy was for …

Barbara Schneider

Warm Spell, February

For the first time in weeks the wind doesn’t cut like an insult.
My dog feels it too. I slacken her leash so she can dig her nose

in the wet underbrush, letting her sniff …

My post-election pledge to myself is to encourage my friends who share political views on Facebook to check their facts. It’s not as easy as it sounds. People who express strong feelings already think they have all the facts they …

It is with some sadness that I note the recent passing of Stan Lee, impresario extraordinaire. When I started reading comic books, I started out with DC—the home of Batman, Superman, the Flash, and Blackhawk. They were mostly bland, upright …

Citizen Illegal
By José Olivarez
Haymarket Books, 2018
BreakBeat Poets series

I’m a couple generations away from the immigrant experience. My grandparents on one side emigrated from Sweden in the early 1900s, met and married in this country. On the …

You couldn’t stop the rain in time, inkjet print on cotton rag paper, 2018

(Inspired by Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver)

The nameless ones in the graves, inkjet print on cotton rag paper, 2018

(Inspired by Athol …

Marco Migani aka Inserrirefloppino collage art 

Collagically Speaking, They Have Arrived

By Dan Ursini © 2018

Collagically Speaking, the title of the first album by R+R=NOW, nicely sums up the music of this band.

The word “collagically” evokes the …

Ghostographs: an Album by Maria Romasco Moore

Rose Metal Press, 2018

reviewed by Seana Graham

I was initially a little disappointed that Ghostographs wasn’t released quite in time for me to review for Halloween, but now that I’ve read …

When a young person gets the urge to draw stuff, quite often they will pick an already established work and copy the shit out of it. My particular muse, as a pre-adolescent, was Charles Schulz’s Peanuts. I had …

Anne Siems

You Are Here→•

I will never, despite the spinning,
fly off the Earth.

It’s just not possible.
The grip that holds it all together—

all the oceans and coffee cups,
wheat fields and butter knives,

porches and …

Mary Daniel Hobson

Sanctuary, Two Poems

Webster’s Dictionary defines sanctuary as “a place where someone or something is protected or given shelter.” It can also mean a room in a church, synagogue, etc., where religious services are held. For me …

Natasha Newton

Erica Goss

Hunter’s Moon

We’re bones in October,
toys for the wind
whose fists pound children

to the ground,
bell the pleated skirt
I wear in fifth grade,

blasting my ears with
a desert people’s
sharp syllables.

The …

Embrace, acrylic on paper, 15″ x 12″, 2018

One Good Reason, oil, 30″ x 30″, 2018

Paper Doll, oil, 40″ x 30″, 2017

Stars in Her Crown, oil, 40″ x 30″, 2018

Tangent, oil, 20″ …

Remedios Varo

The Night I Get Diagnosed with MS Under a Blood Moon
 
A coyote appears on the road. This is not a metaphor.
There are scavengers. Smoke hangs in the air
and the red face of the moon is …

Wives’ Tales
by Marjorie Maddox
The Seven Kitchens Press, 2017
Editor’s Series 3.03

Reviewed by Kathleen Kirk, EIL Poetry Editor

In fairy tales, as in life, there is always so much I don’t understand. Ah, that is probably the point—interpretation, …

Mattijn Franssen

It’s CatOber again at Escape Into Life. Look for the (subtle and not-so-subtle, present and missing) cats in these poems & photos….

Virginia Smith Rice 

Frequency (If There’s a Face There Should Be an I)

Tonight is …

Tanya Johnston, [re]-surfacing

Best of the Net Nominations 2018

for work published between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018

Please join us in congratulating Escape Into Life’s nominees for Best of the Net. Click the links to revisit these …

September songs are always in a minor key. They are about Summer Ending and Winter Pending. They are about wishing summer would last longer. That’s just wrong!

Fall is its own world of changing colors and winds that blow warm …

What She Was Saying: Stories

by Marjorie Maddox

Fomite, 2017

reviewed by Seana Graham

I’ve read several short story anthologies lately, and have found myself wondering at times about the best way to read them. Does it matter what …

No Moon in the Eastern Sky

She’s Disappearing

The Soft White Dress and Bouquet

The White Dove

Almost Midnight

Drawing A

Velvet Dress for Olivia

Note: The artist’s original collages are 16″ x 20″; they can be printed archival …

Julia Zanes

Grief Inflammation

A room filled with what has been
disowned :  names, a disfigured religion or two,
a host of paper waifs that slip between rails
and stick underfoot until there is nowhere

left to stand. Nowhere, I …

Michael Chabon’s “Moonglow” bills itself as a novel—the label is right there on the cover. But it’s much more than that as well. It’s equally a quiet, funny, sentimental and probing memoir—or perhaps “memoir”—so much so that the reader might …

Flow

Dazed

Silver Passage to the Underworld

Dimensions

Artist Statement 

My process involves constructing, deconstructing and fragmenting images, data, and information geometrically into triangulated segments. My recent paintings, work and projects investigate the relationship, communication, and documentation of the exchange …

The True by Sharr White
Directed by Scott Elliott
Produced by The New Group
Off Broadway @ The Pershing Square Signature Center

Reviewed by Scott Klavan, Preview, Saturday matinee, September 8, 2018

With his recent play The Other Place, …

From Baghdad to Chicago: Memoir and Reflections of an Iraqi American Physician
by Asad A. Bakir
Archway Publishing, 2018

A commentary by Basel Al-Aswad

When my friend Asad told me several months ago that his memoir has finally been …

A theater essay by Scott Klavan

The Empty Space, by the British director Peter Brook, was published in 1968, to both admiration and discomfort. Derived from a series of lectures begun in ’65, its description of the state of …

Roberto Peluce

Rob Carney

When I Went to Work as a Snow-Globe Designer,

I didn’t do it for the usual reasons.
I did it to get some practice in

before building my house at the bottom of the ocean.
Less …

Khruangbin: Tight Pocket, Global Reach

By Dan Ursini ©2018

Khruangbin is a rock guitar-bass-drums trio which at the very least is creating the first serious updates in surf/exotica music since Dick Dale’s 1962 cover of “Misirlou,” which so memorably opened …

Alejandro Colungo

Mather Schneider

Eclipse, August 21, 2017

I drive to Hermosillo solo
through the midsummer inferno       it’s the day of the eclipse
like a preposterous sentience behind the sun and sky
will slide open a peephole
to look down …

Not-for-Beginners Yoga

Please Please Please Please Please

Portrait (With Pinned Ear)

Singing for My Supper

Dog-Gone Happy

Darn Squirrel

I Could Use a Big Hug

They Will Not Make Me Smile

Note: The captions are the editor’s own.

Artist

A Bright and Pleading Dagger

by Nicole Rivas

Rose Metal Press, 2018

reviewed by Seana Graham

For the last twelve years, the wonderful Rose Metal Press, which specializes in hybrid genres, has sponsored a contest for flash fiction …

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 

by Muriel Spark 

Lippencott, 1962. Harper Perennial, 1994 

reviewed by Seana Graham 

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, for those who don’t know it, is a short novel which has …

Elke Vogelsang

During the dog days of July this year, I saw a lot of dogs walking with their humans in the early morning hours along the beach at Twin Lakes State Park in California. We all walked along in …

In my previous posts, “Social Tolerance is Unacceptable,” “Do Tolerance Laws Change Society?” and “A World of Social Acceptance,” I explored social tolerance, how laws in my previous posts can promote intolerance, and moving …

If there’s one thing the 12 steps (for addiction relief) teaches: denial is the enemy. Embrace reality—no matter how harsh—and you have taken a step towards wholeness.

Denial in America? It’s epidemic now. Real people, in powerful positions, are denying, …

Autoportraitism, oil on panel, 36″ x 60″, 2017

Boy at the Edge of the World, oil on panel, 30″ x 48″, 2018

Celestial Navigation, oil on panel, 36″ x 48″, 2017

Gathering Apples (the way she remembers …

Music for Music: Time Is On Their Side

by Dan Ursini © 2018

The Brazilian Girls are a brave, fun band—longtime dance/jazz/poptronica practitioners blessed with nonpareil artistic stamina. They have just released their first album in ten years, Let’s …

Kate Bassett

Yvonne Zipter  

On Berteau Avenue

Lines so deep in his face they are small ravines.
A few yellowed teeth ride the wave of his jaw,
as he tells me about his trip with his father
to a greyhound …

Fred Tomaselli

Rob Carney

Political Science

One summer the people of Kalispell had too much paint. Driving into town, I saw a car slap-dashed with yellow—must have been two-hundred cartoon lemons—and a homemade signboard bolted on the roof: “Dale’s Sales …

Igor & Marina, Jazzmen

Why I Write Articles Instead of Reviews of YouTube Music 

By Dan Ursini © 2018

All the statistics I have seen about YouTube music have two things in common: they involve a very large number, …

With the world turning upside down and all, I have been clinging to a little prayer, a small branch that keeps me from falling into the great abyss: “let me do what is mine to do, and let me release …

As a reminder to EIL readers this is 2nd part of my interview with Kyra Woods on May 25th, 2018, at the downtown offices of the Chicago Chapter of the Sierra Club. Please refer to Part 1 in link below …

In her previous two posts, Social Tolerance is Unacceptable and Do Tolerance Laws Change Society?  Billie Wade explored social tolerance and how laws can promote intolerance. Here, in Part 3 of this four-part series, she looks at possibilities for moving

Domencio Gnoli

DANISH PRINCE ASSOCIATION PROTESTS HAMLET

The Danish Prince Association (DPA) has protested against the portrayal of their members in the classic play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. At a press conference in Copenhagen on Wed., Fjord Clogsen, head …

Santa Cruz Noir
Edited by Susie Bright
Akashic Books, 2018

It’s officially summer! I started my summer reading with Santa Cruz Noir, a collection of new noir stories, all set in Santa Cruz. I’m headed there later this summer …

Faithful, acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 36″, 2016

Flash, acrylic on canvas, 16″ x 20″, 2015

Fix Me Deeper, mixed media on canvas, 24″ x 20″, 2015

Golden Beauty, mixed media on canvas, 24″ x 20″, …

Dean Pasch, The Freudian Cabinet

Paulette Beete  

Instructions for a Poem with Grief

Write an elegy:

Transmute should have been into fact.

Admit only there was a slight unraveling.

If you are feathered with need or hunger become another …

Shai Kremer

Falling Still

My father who is 70 never tells me
I love you when I say it

as a good-bye: I love you then
silence. I imagine my words hurtling

from my mouth, a spray
of bullets aimed …

The offices of the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club, headquartered in Chicago on the 15th floor of 70 East Lake Street, are ordinarily a beehive of activity with workers and volunteers all over the place. But on Friday morning, …

A Bag of Hands
Mather Schneider
Rattle, Studio City, CA, 2018
Rattle Chapbook Prize Selection
Runner-Up in 2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize

Reviewed by Kathleen Kirk, EIL Poetry Editor

I love the sheer honesty of Mather Schneider’s poems. He’s a poet …

Girlie Calendar
by Mary Meriam
Headmistress Press, 2014
The Lillian Trilogy, Book 3

Reviewed by Kathleen Kirk, EIL Poetry Editor

Really, you could open this Girlie Calendar to any page, and it would be the perfect date. Today, a …

Let me explain. I was reading an article about one writer’s disillusionment with one of his heroes, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Junot Diaz. Apparently, Mr. Diaz has, despite his enlightened writing on toxic masculinity, been found to have engaged in it …

Heather Horton

Angels in America
By Tony Kushner 
Directed by Marianne Elliott
Broadway—Neil Simon Theatre
Part I: Millennium Approaches– 5/8/18; Part II: Perestroika- 5/20/18

Reviewed by Scott Klavan

Angels in America by Tony Kushner is the best new American …

House to Protect a Dream, oil on canvas, 120 cm x 160 cm, 2018

Norwegian Green, oil on canvas, 100 cm x 150 cm, 2018

Sink Down the Green, oil on canvas, 140 cm x 170 cm, …

Rafal Olbinski

The Year of Fires and Floods

Think of natural disasters as domestic, something
smaller than in those movies where the beautiful
blonde scientist escapes a tsunami in a well-timed
helicopter with a wisecracking pilot—a love interest

to keep …

Geoff Mitchell, Drop

Rachel Dacus

Foundling

Mother, you found me fresh
and fondled my small face, ears, and toes.
A foundling yourself, you opened
your blanket to let me into a soft space
where I grew, sometimes sheltered from the …

In my last post, I discussed the drawbacks and inadequacies of social tolerance, “Social Tolerance is Unacceptable.”  The article provoked some questions by my editor, Nancy Heather Brown.

Now, in response to her questions, I seek to expand on the …

Alexander McKenzie

I Swim at the Y

Ten blocks from the lake, the building—
near-empty—stands: brick survivor. The other
swimmers are pumping out basements, sucking up
liquid that sucked up albums and cards
stacked too-low on shelves below
the water …

The Lollyball Problem by Jessy Randall 

Snith liked his so much, I thought I’d try the woman’s version, with the nose. I’d walked in on Snith with his once, and the look on his face was like nothing I’d ever …

Monster Portraits 

by Del Samatar and Sofia Samatar

Rose Metal Press, 2018

reviewed by Seana Graham 

I don’t know about where you live, but here in Santa Cruz, monsters seem to be trending. A young acquaintance of …

Via Basel: Passions, Part 3: Outdoors and Environment

My 3rd passion, related to the well being of our planet Earth, is perhaps the most important and consequential of all. If the arts and literature were about beauty and aesthetics, and …

In the mid-eighties, the awful realization that I had entered my late twenties overtook me. It was at this time that I once again took up the reading of comic books, after a hiatus of about twelve years. Make of …

351 Farmington Ave. (Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut)

Susy’s Room (Mark Twain House)

The Parlor (Mark Twain House)

The Stairwell (Mark Twain House)

The Library (Mark Twain House)

The Library II (Mark Twain House)

The Nursery (Mark Twain House)

The …

Redd Walitzki

Talking Back to Emily Dickinson

She’s such a sass with her Essential Oils –
are wrung – and her big-sister devilry,
the way she tells me love is the noose
every neck must slip.

I talk back to …

I got to laughing so hard I was snorting yesterday. I will tell you why, but first you gotta know the set-up.

I started out looking for a fight. My thoughts were tumbling around in friggin’ partial sentences and declaratives …

Jill Ricci

Susanna Lang

Ars Poetica

My memory is loose, our dry cleaner says, emerging from the racks
     of shirts wrapped in plastic.

It is the morning after a heavy rain and I have to agree, I have
     even …

The Renaissance Club

by Rachel Dacus

Fiery Seas, 2018

reviewed by Seana Graham  

May Gold is a college adjunct who, thanks to the generosity of her older and more established boyfriend Darren, finds herself in the company of the …

Music for Music: Balawan, Jazz, and Gamelan

By Dan Ursini © 2018

It’s not easy, but a stringed instrument like an electric guitar can be played one-handed. It’s called tapping and it involves hammering the fretting fingers hard enough to …

Aakash Nihalani

How a moth flies into a poem

Inevitably she is driving
when it happens—
a poem moves inside her like moth wings.
The horn coughs as she struggles
to shape words on the steering wheel,
flutters her pencil’s …

I’ve been a fan of puppetry and a patron of puppet theatre for years, and I like almost any kind of puppetry, from hand-held dolls and shadow puppets to giant, larger-than-life puppets that dwarf the humans manipulating them.

This weekend …

Natalie Moore covers the South Side of Chicago as a reporter for Chicago’s public radio station, WBEZ-FM. It’s a very personal calling, as she grew up in the heart of the South Side herself. In her thought-provoking book The South …

Above the Dreamless Dead:
World War I in Poetry and Comics
Edited by Chris Duffy
First Second, New York, 2014
via Macmillan

Above the Dreamless Dead is a wonderful book that pairs poets of World War I with cartoonists …

Social tolerance is an elusive apparition. Meant to foster amicable human relations, it can backfire and serve as a veneer over a burbling cesspool of loathing, distrust, and disregard of the “other.” The intentions behind tolerance often are undermined through …

Like hundreds of thousands of other people across the United States, I spent part of Saturday at one of the many #MarchForOurLives gun control rallies held across the United States. I was both moved and awed by the power and …

But You and I Are Really One, oil on canvas, 36″ x 36″, 2016

Consciousness, oil on canvas, 36″ x 36″, 2017

Eaten, oil on canvas, 24″ x 48″, 2017

Even Better Than the Real Thing, …

Look, it’s like this, the word “look” is trending in American interview vocabulary this year. If I had a nickel for each time I’ve heard that word at the beginning of a statement this week, I’d have at least enough …