Poetry

Take Heart by Molly Peacock ff “Dear Heart,” a poem toward the end of this collection begins “Heart, unlock yourself. Fibrillating wings/Undo your ungolding.” This heart, sealed away, cut off from l

The Crazy Bunch by Willie Perdomo ’85. If you’d like to take an anthropological trip to a different culture right within the confines of Manhattan island, this book is for you. These poems take you

Invasive Procedures, Earthquakes, Calamities & Poems from the midst of life by Nan Socolow ’55. This collection of poems reflects on love, complicated love, death, children, nature, aging, and our

Manderley, Poems by Rebecca Wolff, middle school in the 80’s. I picked this work because I had just read Nora Olsen’s homage to Daphne du Maurier ( Maxine Wore Black) and wondered how Rebecca Wolff

Once More with Feeling by Tina Cane, ff. Tina’s collection of poems, grounded in New York and family, reflects the welter of feelings engendered by the city and her particular parents . A group of p

In Captivity by Camille Guthrie ff. Inspired by the Medieval tapestries of the Hunt of the Unicorn in the Cloisters, Camille frames human experience as a hunt in various forms, some obvious and some

Body of Work by Tina Cane ff. In this evocative work, Tina explores a vast range of topics, from concrete vignettes depicting the poverty of her Chinese immigrant grandparents to a cosmic perspectiv

Blood Atlas by Lynne DeSilva Johnson, 90’s?. As in all atlases, geography is central. From Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn in the first poem, near the Marcy housing development, to the candles melted int

Ism is a Retrovirus by Matthew Hupert, late 70’s?. In the section of this poetry collection titled Ars Poetica, Matthew gives his 10 Top Tips – For Poets. Among them is the warning, “If all your po

The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon by Willie Perdomo. New York Puerto Ricans might find themselves in a familiar world in this collection of poetry, but non-Puerto Ricans will discover a portal int

Secular Pantheism by Matthew Hupert ’78. I have been thinking about this title. Pantheism, a religion that believes that the divine or God is immanent in nature, is at the opposite pole from the secu

The Analyst, Poems by Molly Peacock ff. Powerful emotion is the engine for powerful poetry, and this collection of poems erupts from a raging furnace fire. Behind the fraught story of the poet and h

Dear Elena, Letters to Elena Ferrante, Poems by Tina Cane ff. I feel quite privileged to have number 136 of 150 copies of this gorgeous book with artwork by Esther Solondz. (Other printed versions

Voice’s Daughter of a Heart Yet to be Born by Anne Waldman ’62? This work combines prose poems and verse in a trip Offworld with an embryonic version of Thel, the heroine of Blake’s Book of Thel.

The Master Thief by Camille Guthrie (ff). This haunting epic poem is rife with evocative allusions to the brothers Grimm and other purveyors of classic lore. Camille’s poem drew me back to read and r