To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
I’d fallen behind in my reading of First Things so much that, on my vacation, I found myself reading an issue from May of 2016 (you guys back then will never guess what happens next!). In it, I found a poem about grandmother poetry (a genre, as you might recall, I read often–just search for […]
As you might know, gentle reader, I consume a lot of what I call “Grandma Poetry.” These are usually chapbooks published by older women with themes of family and God; the authors are not professional poets and probably don’t even have a magazine credit on their copyright pages. Most of it is not sublime or […]
I bought this collection of poetry earlier this month at Main Street Books in St. Charles on the date weekend my beautiful wife and I shared. When we go somewhere on vacation, as you know, gentle reader, we like to visit used book stores in the area. However, St. Charles has but Main Street Books […]
This comb-bound book has a 1981 copyright date, but the author’s autograph on the title page is dated 1990, so nine years later, she’s still signing them for people. At poetry readings/open mics? For friends? For the little bookstore down the block? I cannot tell, as it’s just a signature and the date, but that […]
I got this book two years ago at ABC Books, and it stayed on the side table for browsing during football games in 2021 and 2022, but I didn’t make it through them, mostly because I kind of gave up on browsing through books during the football games. I’m in a bit of a spot, […]
I bought this book in April at the Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library book sale. In the past, they have bundled chapbooks up five or ten for a buck; however, this year, they did not, so I paid a whole dollar for this book. I picked it up last week when I was not […]
I had not heard of John Ciardi before, but he was a thing in the early middle 20th century, poetry editor for Saturday Review (ask your great grandma during a seance), director of a major writers’ conference, and host of a CBS television show. Of course, he is mostly forgotten now as poetry has fallen […]
Well, gentle reader, as you might know, I like to post a recap of my annual reading to look at some of the trends I discover only at the end. This year, I apparently read about 126 books this year. A little more, a little less–my book year started on December 28, 2019 with the […]
As I mentioned, I went to the Friends of the Springfield-Greene County book sale this weekend. Generally, this sale is semi-annual; however, with the Current Unpleasantness, the spring sale was cancelled. I had not realized how much I missed being able to go buy a stack of books and records cheaply. I brought my boys […]