Another from Ted Hughes today, from The Birthday Poems, his last book before dying, and the long awaited answer to Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems. It’s a bit pathetic, as he claims to have wanted to be her support…and the one who suggested she write about her father. Ted Hughes won all the awards and was … Read more
What the hell was that? I am sorely in need of some consolation, brothers and sisters. A weekend without baseball, followed by a train wreck in the Motor City, has left me sitting here listening to Skip James with my head in my hands (well, my head was in my hands, but I had to … Read more
My instincts at the moment are pretty minimal. Maybe instincts isn’t the word I’m looking for. I’m not sure what word I’m looking for, to be perfectly honest with you. Appetite? My appetite at the moment is pretty minimal? While that’s certainly true, it’s hardly what I meant to say in the first place. It’s … Read more
Some readers have written to ask whether it is ethical to take a published story and write your own version of it. In the news business this is called the “follow on,” and we’ve written about it at length before. The short answer is that it is perfectly ethical; the long answer is that it … Read more
We’ve had a bit from Sylvia Plath, so here’s one from her husband Ted Hughes. Just for balance, perhaps, because Plath is one of our favorites, but so is the much maligned Ted. Remember Plath supporters, she was nuts before she ever met him. It wasn’t his fault. Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three … Read more
—James Dankert I need some new links. I love most of the folks over there in the column to the left, but they’re all pretty much holdovers from my old site, and I’ve noticed lately that some of them are no longer active –a lot of them, actually, which I’m sure is a reflection of … Read more
The Burning Man “Lawrence” by Tony Hoagland On two occasions in the past twelve months, I have failed, when someone at a party spoke of him with a dismissive scorn, to stand up for D.H. Lawrence, a man who burned like an acetylene torch from one end to the other of his life. These individuals, … Read more
–Illustration by James Dankert Here’s the deal: years ago —years ago– I spent a few holiday seasons working at one of those sausage and cheese kiosks at a local mall. I did this, as I do most things, purely out of laziness. The employee discount was attractive to me at the time, and I thought: … Read more
See now some people are just willful about not getting it. Matt Taibbi—the man who is now best known as the author of the world’ most tasteless dead pope jokes—is not happy until he has found a pile of his own shit to goosestep through. In yesterday’s New York Press, he offers his long and … Read more
The guy who pumps the music through the Metrodome speakers during Twins games is a fellow by the name of Kevin Dutcher. I have no idea how much attention people pay to that sort of thing during baseball games, but I started noticing a few years ago that the selection of tunes at the Dome … Read more