Criticism

His writing is devastating in its beauty, evoking West Virginia’s mountain hollows with a sinewy and precise prose that comes as close to Hemingway as anything I’ve ever read.

I wanted to say I have come home
to bear witness, to read the sign
emblazoned on the church marquee—

We’re at the Potts Mountain Shooting Range
on a hot day in March, blowing ammo,

Don’t make the mistake of calling her
angel or saint. The tremendous broad crowning
Troy’s war monument grips her sword

Here is my solitary city. This island of steel
and avenue. Towers with skeletons of organ

This week they are painting
the North Gulfport water tower.

On her wedding day, a bride should slip a good penny into her shoe
to ensure luck and wealth during the life of her marriage.

The reality of Bolaño’s outlaw image, The Daily Beast gets into books, the Google books settlement’s collapse, Bill Murray’s support of poetry, and more.

At first, there was nothing to do but watch.
For days, before the trucks arrived, before the work
of clean-up, my brother sat on the stoop and watched.