poetry « A Progressive on the Prairie

Current books:

Lonely: A Memoir by Emily White
Dark Heart of the Night (French Voices) by Leonora Miano

Recent books:

Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid by Nicholas Schou
The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker
Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bolaño
Strange Days Indeed: The 1970s: The Golden Days of Paranoia by Francis Wheen
Seth Bullock: Black Hills Lawman by David A. Wolff

Book Review: Public Image: Stories and Poems by Thomas A. Hauck

Short stories and poetry are deceptively difficult literary forms. On the surface, they have the allure of simplicity. After all, they don’t require the detailed arcs or subplots of a novel. Short stories also need not deal with meter or rhyme. Yet these things also make them so difficult. They require [...]

Book Review: Requiem for New Orleans (2006)

Sometimes a title says it all. Mike Sharpe’s Requiem for New Orleans is a lament for a New Orleans that no longer exists. At the same time, the title reflects the stylistic approach Sharpe takes to the subject.

The work is intended to emulate a symphony based on the concept of a requiem mass. [...]

Book Review: Thou Shalt Not Kill Unless Otherwise Instructed (2005)

A confession first. I am not a poetry fan. I don’t know why, but it is something I never got into. My preferred “form” of the art is songwriting. Most of my favorite songwriters are generally called “topical,” meaning they’re writing about what they see is happening in the world.

That’s probably part of the reason [...]