VQR Online

See the trees lean to the wind’s way of learning.
See the dirt of the hills shape to the water’s way of learning.
See the lift of it go the way the biggest
wind and the strongest water want it.

Gold buttons in the garden today—
Among the brown-eyed susans the golden spiders are gambling.
The blue sisters of the white asters speak to each other.

Late in the winter came one day
When there was a whiff on the wind,
a suspicion, a cry not to be heard

Cabbages catch at the moon.
It is late summer, no rain, the pack of the soil
cracks open, it is a hard summer.
In the night the cabbages catch at the moon, the
leaves drip silver, the rows of cabbages are
series of little silver waterfalls...

The sky of gray is eaten in six places,
Rag holes stand out.
It is an army blanket and the sleeper
slept too near the fire.

Lysley Tenorio, Laura van den Berg, and Caitlin Horrocks are a few of the standouts in the latest Best New American Voices and PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories anthologies.

Walmart vs Amazon, B&N’s Nook, a Rothian tour of Newark, Lethem reads the whole of his new novel, and more.

The idiot greens the meadow with his eyes,
The meadow creeps, implacable and still;
A dog barks; the hammock swings; he lies.
One, two, three, the cows bulge on the hill.