Etch To Their Own
Poetry in your inbox every Friday, published here a little while afterwards.
I’ll send you poetry on a Friday
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Latest
Everyone Cried
Everyone Cried
Lydia Davis has a new piece in the New Yorker called Everyone Cried. Like a lot of Lydia’s work, the story picks at the little things that…
Guts
Guts
What is the point of any of committing something to a text? To remember without memory is one, to transmit an idea without being present…
Ash Before Oak
Ash Before Oak
There are certain texts that grip you from the first instance — an arresting opening line, a surprising set up, an unusual voice leaping…
He brought us some mush to fry
He brought us some mush to fry
The Anonymous Diary, an essay in The Paris Review by Kathryn Scanlan is a kind of confession about using someone else’s story in your own…
High spirits
High spirits
High Spirits: A round of drinking stories is a short story anthology revolving around drinking, drunkenness and featuring alcohol more…
Several short sentences
Several short sentences
I was sent Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg this week, by someone who probably wanted me to shorten my own…
Death is a fifty-fifty thing, maybe forty-forty
Death is a fifty-fifty thing, maybe forty-forty
Water, the popular substance for sustaining life on up-and-coming planets like notable 3rd place sun botherer, Earth, has had mixed PR…
A man without imagination didn’t deserve to be in charge of a poem, let alone a city
A man without imagination didn’t deserve to be in charge of a poem, let alone a city
I am not one for crime. I don’t read a lot of genre fiction. But Muscle by Alan Trotter (owner of the best author website) does something…
Pulling at a thread
Pulling at a thread
I started a new job this week, so have been entirely too wired to do any proper reading — so it’s a short one this week.
Those who retain full access to their imaginations are crosshatched
Those who retain full access to their imaginations are crosshatched
This week is a bit of flurry of good poetry and prose. Let’s start with the strange writings of Dianne Suess, which is a little like…
I’d like to share two lovely things from Rosebud Ben-Oni, briefly. An older poem about her husband:
I’d like to share two lovely things from Rosebud Ben-Oni, briefly. An older poem about her husband:
Which has all that longtermlove soppiness in it. And this, which is extremely on-brand in that it’s “about horses” again.
Love, Bring Myself
Love, Bring Myself
For the month of April, which is national poetry month somewhere, I am exchanging poems with a friend every day, using a little of the…
Another last
Another last
Another Last Day by Alex Lemon is a kind of self-apocalypse in a way we’re all familiar with — the sense that yes, this is all going to…
Make Believe
Make Believe
Judson Hamilton’s The New Make Believe from Dostoyevsky Wannabe mixes odd, meaningful places with crunchy names and concepts with a…
If I am not Mistak
If I am not Mistak
I found this week’s story through someone looking for an em dash.
I have run out of compassion for wolves
I have run out of compassion for wolves
If My Body Could Speak by Blythe Baird, published by Button Poetry is an exploration of eating disorders, sexuality, and coming of age…
Is that found material?
Is that found material?
Lydia Davis talks about her writing in the Paris Review, and how her work consists now of mostly found material. She explores how there is…
We huddled in the breath of our willful ignorance
We huddled in the breath of our willful ignorance
Tommy Dean’s When the Water’s Came in CX is an apocalyptic flash fiction with the same vitriolic energy as a Henry Rollins spiel. It uses…
Horse Latitudes
Horse Latitudes
Sometimes poetry is about expressing simple things, like the inexpressible nuances of different kinds of love. Blythe Baird’s What I…
The Mothnan Prophecies
The Mothnan Prophecies
Please note, this is a little spoilery. The book is full of tonal reveals I discuss, even if I have avoided some of the plot points you…
In Reprose
In Reprose
I love prose poetry. Our expectations are set very differently. Like flash fiction, we expect to be taken to the centre of an event very…