Featured Works: Week of Jan. 18 (News)
While some draw inspiration from personal experience, others find source material in local, national or global events, as this week’s contributors illustrate. “Headlines” by Kevin J.B. O’Connor encapsulates some of the major themes from recent newscasts. “To Pete Rose” by Joey Nicoletti finds a personal connection to a sports legend. “Approaching comet” by Douglas J. Lanzo highlights a recurring science phenomenon. “The Cemetery Gardeners” by J. Novalis Wolfe may be set in any age, moving on from war to find...
Read MoreThe Cemetery Gardeners
Last Friday noon we planted cherry trees in the town On a moist lawn for those lost limbs and foundered souls of war. We laid them round, our cherry trees, heeling soon in place By the gate, like green apostles bound in burlap robes. And then with usual care, we champed the sodden earth— Heaving clay, until a stiff procession of barreled steel Passed by; or rather, a big new funeral play complete With chaplain chiming Latin; or come to think, was it Greek? Then boomed three salvos sounding like spit’n damnation. We rested blades and stared as brassy music blared Up and filled the vacuum...
Read MoreApproaching comet
Approaching comet speeds with icy gas exhaust as it nears our Sun in its faithful pilgrimage tithing cosmic gas and dust.
Read MoreTo Pete Rose
Dear Mr. Rose: even though you told me to get lost when I asked you for your autograph, politely, at Shea Stadium when I was a teenager, I still hope you are enshrined in Cooperstown someday, because having more knocks than Ty Cobb or anyone else is almost as spectacular of an achievement as my mother teaching herself and her parents how to speak, read and write English as a first generation Italian American, in a chippy game of cultural assimilation where there was no seventh inning...
Read MoreHeadlines
Oligarchies discard cartons of rotting produce in secret dumpsters across twenty-seven states withholding payment from migrants. Wraiths eat mold. Camellias bloom in acidic soil— gnarled, blackened with ash. Governors convey cases of bourbon to prevent viral contamination, the appearance of insensitivity. Activists quashed by the National Guard reorganize in abandoned airplane hangars, subsisting on canned tomatoes and roast beef. The nearly assassinated president revivifies, endorsed by state radio. Hospitals for Hollywood stars, skyscrapers, appear on the moon. Denizens die in...
Read MoreFeatured Works: Week of Dec. 28 (Memory)
As a highly unusual year ends, the holiday season gives rise to reflection, and memories seem to rise out of the mist, as this week’s contributors illustrate. “Ahab’s Crew” by Anthony Botti reflects on days at a boarding school in the 1980s. “She Knew” by Dan Pettee presents a personal view of life and mortality, as seen by a scholar. “The Turn” by David Sapp recalls a family memory that foreshadowed future...
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