A Selection of Free-verse Poems
DuskBroken, bare, solitary, lost, an old treecrouches in the desert’s foreboding silence, its thousand-mile starefixed on the departure of a shade:and the moment the crow returns to its nest—worn-out, bearingsorrow to those… More
Conversation: Anthea Bell & Doris Orgel
April 7 Dear Anthea, much admired fellow translator,Given your vast output, I’ve fantasized that there must be at least a dozen of you, all busily working on many varied, often… More
Time of Sky
1.Blood always bloodAs blue is blueIncessant explosion of a thirst-ripened orange2.A kiss on the fountain that grows pigeon-like anywhere upon the trembling mirror that exposes itself3.The innocent windowFlung inwardsAnd… More
Revisiting the Racial Mountain
In “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” Langston Hughes’s famous essay of 1926, Hughes describes his disappointment with a statement made by “one of the most promising of the… More
Writing by Twilight: Steven Corbin’s Queer Triptych
Like that of all authors who died AIDS-related deaths, with each passing year Steven Corbin’s work takes on a significance beyond its worth as good or not so good… More
Looking for Black Literature?
I first understood what people meant when they spoke of intangible white privilege when I realized that I read differently than other people. Literature had often asked me to… More
365 Black: Celebrating African-America History and Culture All Year Long
As an African-American author and publisher of children’s books I am delighted when the month of February arrives. February is a short and usually cold month, but in publishing… More
American Sublime
We want Brasil but Brasil won’t win. Aden waves a desultory green and yellow flag. From the East to the West to the West to the East we scatter and settle and… More
Grand Tour
In America I’m not really a private person. No, I’m a public person. And a public person cannot write. More
E.L. Doctorow Calls for Liu Xiaobo’s Release
Such events as this have been necessary for as long as I can remember. PEN Members marched around the Czech embassy to protest the jailing of Vaclav Havel. Twenty… More
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