I want to bring your attention to a forgotten poet of the Left, Lola Ridge, and to the fine book that made me aware of her work. Light in Hand: Selected Early Poems of Lola Ridge edited by Daniel Tobin. I have posted Tobin’s fine introduction, which places Ridge in the literary and political context […]
I am once again, after many years, reading Kenneth Rexroth. I should say I am going back to school to Kenneth Rexroth. Although I am aware that Copper Canyon just brought out a beautiful edition of The Complete Poems edited by Sam Hamill and Bradford Morrow, I am content with my two New Directions books, […]
Ol’ Granpappy Montaigne I have just come from the second NonfictioNow Conference at the University of Iowa where I have met some wonderful writers, heard about some others, and renewed myself by recalling, from deep in a demanding semester of teaching, what it is that draws me to nonfiction, specifically to the essay. It was […]
LUCILLE CLIFTON shapeshifter poems by Lucille Clifton 1 the legend is whisperedin the women’s tenthow the moon when she risesfullfollows some men into themselvesand changes them therethe season is shortbut dreadful shapeshiftersthey wear strange handsthey walk through the housesat night their daughtersdo not know them 2 who is there to protect herfrom the hands of […]
Nothing to say except that this chestnut, among Vonnegut’s hit singles, is more relevant by the minute: HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut (1961) THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was […]
My new book, Gold Star Road, is now available from Barrow Street Press (www.barrowstreet.org), from Amazon, or from Small Press Distribution (www.spdbooks.org). Here are two poems from Gold Star Road, followed by links to others from the book that appear elsewhere on the web, and jacket blurbs from poets Molly Peacock, Linda McCarriston, Afaa Michael […]
I have wanted for some time to bring the attention of my students and colleagues to the well-documented fact that powerful political forces use the wealth at their disposal to shape our aesthetics. The trouble is that when one begins to speak at a forum or in a classroom about this, especially when you say […]
After the recent suicides of poets Sarah Hannah and Liam Rector, I post this poem, by Brazil’s Carlos Drummond de Andrade, with some urgency. And deep sadness. DON’T KILL YOURSELF Carlos Drummond de Andrade Carlos, keep calm, loveis what you’re seeing now:today a kiss, tomorrow no kiss,day after tomorrow’s Sundayand nobody knows what will happenMonday. […]
RICHARD HOFFMAN 
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