Spinozablue welcomes the poetry and fiction of A.J. Huffman and Charles Tarlton, plus new work by returning champions Donal Mahoney and Steve Klepetar.
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The Fiery Trial. By Eric Foner
I’m currently reading a fantastic history by Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial. It’s a biography of Lincoln in a sense, but focuses on his relationship to slavery and its abolition. Two hundred pages in, I’m reminded of just how far we’ve come, and how incredibly, tragically long it took us to get here. I had forgotten, for instance, that Lincoln’s views — which evolved over time — were considered by many to be too radical, while actual radicals and abolitionists considered him far too accommodating on the issue. At least until 1863. Within his own party, he was considered a moderate, and he worked hard to assuage the fears of the South and, later, Unionist slaveholders.…
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April showers us with new poetry and fiction by Cameron Gearen, Damien Healy and Donal Mahoney.
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The Death of Cleopatra, by Reginald Arthur. 1892
I’m currently reading a very interesting bio of Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff, who also wrote a fine biography of Ben Franklin. She has range.
Cleopatra is a difficult subject for any biographer, but Ms. Schiff does a good job trying to sort truth from legend, and admits when she can’t be sure about certain events or years in the life of the Egyptian queen. We know when she is speculating, unlike many biographers. She actually tells us.
Through page 142, Caesar and Cleopatra take up the majority of the book, and it’s fascinating to discover the various intrigues in play.…
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On this day when everyone is Irish, I think it’s good to remember how many of us got here, what it took, the tragedies overcome and the triumphs at the end of the road. Kathryn Miles has written what sounds like a moving, important book. I caught part of her interview today on NPR:
All Standing: The Remarkable Story of the Jeanie Johnston, The Legendary Irish Famine Ship. By Kathryn Miles.
You can listen to it here: On Point Interview with Kathryn Miles.
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Midnight Walks
Pink elephants glitter through a memory
of a garden. Soaked in rain,
we dance so carefully. Echoing
each other’s indifference
regarding vision, we pattern a moon.
Dialed for futility,
invisible hands reached through
ghosts (broth present and unaccounted for).
Laughter lightening tongues
toward tales of fear and following. Our hands
folding inside each other as we cross
a bridge no one built to come out. Unscathed
is a fairy-told demon. We find
only slightly scarred is more reality’s toll.
Electric Sunset
Flock of feathered followers
pierce the clouds. Dollops of fuscia,
gold, and lime sizzle before igniting. Clouds
crack, open a peep show of silver linings.
Lighting spotlights the mountains’ misery.
1… 2… 3… Thunder matches angry
growl of night, resigns, fades from dripping red
to black.…
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The Lost Place
No longer home
or any other world,
this empty space
grows inside out
like time eating
its own flicking tail.
Have you wondered
where the strong
walls bent, sliding
back into earth?
Who has answered
your call or left
a message on your
empty, hanging pad?
Someday you may
call me “brother”
or forget my different
name. Someday
you too may disappear
another breath of smoke
an absence rising
wraith-like to the snowy stars.
Copyright©2013 by Steve Klepetar. All Rights Reserved.
Steve Klepetar teaches literature and creative writing at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota. His work has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Recent chapbooks include My Father Teaches Me a Magic Word and My Father Had Another Eye, both from Flutter Press. His book Speaking to the Field Mice was recently published by Sweatshoppe Publications.…
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THE NEW HIRE
This would be Hampton Davie’s third academic job in as many hard years since he’d got his Ph.D. in poetry at Winston. He started out prestigiously enough, teaching the introduction to American poetry and a seminar on Wallace Stevens at Bisby University, but that had not worked out. He’d quickly got another position, a little farther down the rankings, at Rolling Rock, but that, too, had dissolved in his hands. Now, he was at Button College, determined to hold on.
He had always loved the campus at Winston, with its old period stone buildings and the ivy on the walls. Even Bisby had evolved through various architectural trends, colonial with columns in one part, Victorian towers in another. Button was a different story.…
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Behind the Barn with Carol Ann
Back in 1957, kissing Carol Ann behind the barn in the middle of a windswept field of Goldenrod with a sudden deer watching was something special, let me tell you. Back then, bobby sox and big barrettes and ponytails were everywhere.
Like many farmers, Carol Ann’s father had a console radio in the living room, and every Saturday night the family would gather ‘round with bowls of ice cream and listen to The Grand Olé Opry. It was beamed “all the way” from Nashville I was told more than once since I was from Chicago and sometimes wore a tie so how could I know.
On my first visit, I asked Carol Ann if the Grand Olé Opry was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir of country music and she said not to say that to her father.…
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