THE PEBBLE by Zbigniew Herbert The pebble is a perfect creature equal to itself mindful of its limits filled exactly with a pebbly meaning with a scent that does not remind one of anything does not frighten anything away does not arouse desire its ardour and coldness are just and full of dignity I feel […]
Some time ago I wrote this short essay explicating what must be one of the most incisive critiques of patriarchal power ever offered in a single poem, Linda McCarriston’s “Le Coursier de Jeanne D’Arc,” from her second book, EVA-MARY, nominated for the National Book Award in 1993. I reprint the poem here, followed by my […]
HAPPY MAY DAY! Reprinted from an essay by Neal Towart, found at http://www.mayweek.ab.ca/archives/2003/history.html May Day Connections May Day as a modern working class celebration and commemoration began from the 1886 events in Chicago where workers were demonstrating for an eight hour day. But the day already had special significance for working people before then. PreIndustrial […]
Another of those odd things I’ll never publish elsewhere, so what the hell… THE END OF TIME: A SHORT PLAY Scene 1: (Idyllic setting: a family is picnicking on the grass.) ENTER Chicken Little (running): The sky is falling! The sky is falling! (Confusion. Alarm.) EXEUNT ALL Scene 2: (A publisher’s office.) Writer: So, if […]
I want to say so much in response to this writing by my Stonecoast colleague, poet Kazim Ali, but there’s really nothing to add, so I post it here without comment. Poetry is DangerousKazim Ali On April 19, after a day of teaching classes at Shippensburg University, I went out to my car and grabbed […]
Last October I had the chance to read my work as part of the Fifth International Festival of Poetry in El Salvador. Although I had sent a number of poems to the Fundacion Poetas for translation, their translator managed to accomplish only one. When I arrived, I had only one poem which could be read […]
“Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel, for example-I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean living must be your whole occupation.” — Nazim Hikmet Some months ago I was part of an extraordinary evening at the Boston Public Library, sponsored by PEN New […]
RICHARD HOFFMAN 
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