September 2020
Sigrid Nunez’ The Friend. A Review
Sigrid Nunez has just published a new novel, What Are You Going Through?, which I'm just now reading. Its female narrator faces and reflects on the ending of a life, as did the narrator of her previous novel, The Friend. I went back to reread my notes on that thought-provoking book and decided to publish them on my blog, in case any of you are also tempted to dip into Nunez' uniquely appealing prose!
The Friend. Sigrid Nunez. 2018. N.Y.: Riverhead: Penguin.
National Book Award for Fiction, 2018.
The first-person narrator of this winner of the 2018 National Book Award for fiction is a…
August 2020
Heat Advisory Amidst Pandemic
Heat Advisory Amidst Pandemic
You shouldn’t go out today –
stay home and hydrate!
My daughter’s texted warning
echoes my own good sense:
Only mad dogs and Englishmen
go out in the mid-day sun.
And yet I crave my forest fix
my walk past laughing gardens
into the wooded park
under a glass clear sky.
The months of social distancing
have left me strangely dulled,
devoid of motivation.
Thrown back upon myself
I’m forced to inner contemplation
to find what’s at my core.
Looking for wisdom,
longing for joy –
intensity of feeling
a ghost now in my memory,
I muster all my senses.
A welcome…
July 2020
Unlatch
This sonnet by Dorian Brooks was first published in Ibbetson Street in 2019.
Unlatch
A woman from Honduras recalled how officials
took away her baby while she was breastfeeding.
—The Guardian, June 16, 2018
I wonder, when they came to take away
babies from nursing mothers, did they snatch
them off, or let the mothers finish, the way
midwives and manuals taught them – to “unlatch”
as naturally as breathing? Carefully
crook your pinky finger and slip it into
your baby’s mouth. Turn your finger slowly
to break the suction, ease it nearer you
a little bit, then rest. I like…
October 2018
Poetry Editor
Dorian Brooks wrote the two poems “Thalassa” and “Poetry Editor” in memory of her friend and fellow poet Mary Rice, who died in 2011. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Mary Rice was an essayist and videographer as well as a poet; her poems, articles, and reviews were published in several magazines, including Ms. and Sojourner. A feminist and proud graduate of all-women Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, USA, she also held a master's degree in art history from Boston University. She was an editor of the feminist magazine Second Wave, and later, poetry editor of Ibbetson Street…
Thalassa
Dorian Brooks wrote the two poems “Thalassa” and “Poetry Editor” in memory of her friend and fellow poet Mary Rice, who died in 2011. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Mary Rice was an essayist and videographer as well as a poet; her poems, articles, and reviews were published in several magazines, including Ms. and Sojourner. A feminist and proud graduate of all-women Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, USA, she also held a master's degree in art history from Boston University. She was an editor of the feminist magazine Second Wave, and later, poetry editor of Ibbetson Street…
