Oliver Radclyffe: Frighten the Horse (A Memoir)

Frighten the Horses – Oliver Radclyffe – Roxane Gay Books – 978-0-8021-6315-8 – Hardcover – 352 pages – $28.00 – September 17, 2024 – ebook versions available at lower prices

This is flat out a remarkable story told by a remarkable person. We live in a time when people are so often simply categorized into identities, as if the naming of a version of self somehow explains who a person is. Labels do not tell stories: gay, straight, queer, trans. All are too reductive to have any meaning whatsoever. Every person is a complicated being, and most of us contain multiple versions of ourselves. Sometimes those versions simply do not make sense.

Oliver Radclyffe started out life as a relatively protected and very privileged girl in England, who married a man and had four children, moved to a wealthy Connecticut suburb and had what seemed to be a perfect life. But his inner life was far from resolved and the tensions of an emerging self could not be reconciled until he eventually came out as a lesbian, risking a great deal in order to establish an identity that reflected his inner being.

But that turned out to be a way station on his ultimate journey. There was still more work he had to do before his ultimate transformation to being a man, one who is also an active parent, still learning from his children, still in the process of becoming. As we all should be.

Aside from this being an incredibly engaging story that takes place in the same town I grew up in, the courageously deep and honest sharing of his story was for me a journey toward understanding, both for the writer and for me, the reader. By exposing so much of his story and his struggles to become himself, Oliver has created what is truly an essential guide to understanding the trans experience. Even for the many of us who believe in the multitude of human identity and being need to understand as fully as possible what it actually means to be a trans person. If you are fortunate enough to have a trans person in your life, this book should be the next book you pick up.

While I am certain that every person’s story is unique and that Oliver is not a stand in for every gay or trans person, female or male, knowing so much about his ongoing journey to becoming his authentic self is incredibly valuable for others, whether we are ourselves gay, straight, trans or something else.

I can’t recommend this book enough. Go read it right now. Let me know what you think of it.

This review blurb says it all for me: “The finest literary telling of the experience of gender transition that I’ve ever read. It’s a terrific, expansive story because the focus of this warm-hearted man always returns to his children. He’s simply a wonderful parent, and that’s what keeps the reader turning the pages.”—Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw

Author website
Buy the book

Author photo by Lev Rose Water

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Abraham Chang: 888 Love and the Divine Burden of Numbers

888 Love and the Divine Burden Numbers: A Novel — Abraham Chang — Flatiron Books — Hardcover — 978-1-250-91078-3 — 400 pages — $29.99 — ebook $14.99 — May 7, 2024

“You are obsessed with Robert Smith and company, Morrissey and Marr, and Gahan, and Gore. You spend hours ruminating on their obtuse Anglo references and overanalyzing their overly clever lyrics –how these pasty British men sing of a life through jangly guitars with jutted-jaw irony, and someone manage to reflect your preferred, parallel worldview: repressed, depressed, well-dressed. The chimes in ‘Pictures of You’ give you chills.”

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Kevin Baker: The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City

The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City — Kevin Baker — Knopf Publishing – 9780375421839 – Hardcover — 528 pages — $35.00 — March 5, 2024 — ebook versions available at lower prices

I am guessing that anyone who knows me well will be aware that baseball has been a lifelong passion. I’ve written baseball poetry and stories, interviewed former players, and talked to writers about baseball many times over the years. I’ve read hundreds of baseball books, and published a few as well.  Among the legion of great baseball novels, Kevin Baker’s Sometimes You See it Coming is one of my all time favorites. And of all the nonfiction baseball books I’ve come across, his newest book, The New York Game is among the very best.

In this The New York Game, Kevin tells the history of America’s greatest city through the lens of America’s greatest game. He is a masterful story teller, weaving together multiple strands of cultural, political, economic, and geographic history to create a brilliant tapestry from the beginning era that baseball was invented in the New York City environs, through its glory years, ending with World War II (and leaving us waiting for the sequel that will cover the 80 years since).

One element that sets this book apart from so many other books about baseball history is that Baker seamlessly writes about the often overlooked stories of Black and Hispanic baseball players and particularly the crucial importance of the Negro Leagues in American sports history. Race and sports reflect back all the flaws and foibles of the American experiment in sometimes painful and jarring ways. Understanding (and facing) how baseball – its ownership, management, players, and fans – dealt with race and racialism over the course of American history is crucial to understanding who we are today.

Even readers who think they know all about New York City baseball will learn from this book, and will enjoy Baker’s stories about the game, always cast in his fast-moving, highly literate style. There are so many stories, vignettes, portraits and analyses, it is impossible to list them all, not just the already famous, but many figures even those of us who have studied baseball or grew up in New York will have heard of before.

I’ve interviewed Kevin twice before for Writerscast, including for his excellent socio-political economic book about modern New York City, The Fall of a Great American City. (co-published by City Point Press and Harper’s Magazine in 2019).

I cannot recommend this new book more highly, even for those who do not identify as baseball fans. Not only will you gain a deeper understanding of the history of our largest and most dynamic city, you’ll be entertained throughout by a master storyteller. It’s one of those rare books you will have trouble putting down once you start reading.

Author website

Buy the book.

Writerscast interview with Kevin about The Fall of a Great American City

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Karl Marlantes: Cold Victory, a Novel

Cold Victory: A Novel — Karl Marlantes — Atlantic Monthly Press – 978-0-8021-6142-0 – Hardcover — 352 pages — $28.00 — January 9, 2024 — ebook versions available at lower prices

I have to confess at the outset that Karl Marlantes has become one of my favorite authors of recent times and his latest book Cold Victory, is yet another outstanding novel from this author, whose first novel, Matterhorn, was published in 2010 after a full thirty years of effort. I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of interviewing Karl for all three of his previous books, each of them very different in subject matter and approach. A characteristic that is common to all of this author’s books is his extraordinary ability to create believable, wonderful characters that truly come to life on the page.

Cold Victory is related Karl’s 2019 novel Deep River, through a single common character. Deep River is set in the Northwestern United States in the early twentieth century, while this new book takes place in Finland right after the close of World War II. It’s safe to guess that most readers, like me, will be unaware of Finland’s complex role in that war, allying first with Germany to fight the Soviet Union to keep the latter from taking over its much smaller neighbor, and then allied itself with the Allies to fight Germany. Basically, Finland fought anyone and everyone to maintain its independence. In the aftermath of WWII, Finland was forced to pay reparations to the Soviets and gave up 10% of its land to the USSR.

In Cold Victory, the main characters are American and Russian, but the countries and the people of Finland have equal importance to the story. The American and Russian protagonists are two couples of similar age, but with such different life experiences that they must relate to each other on what they do share — honor, and love of soldiering for the men, commitment to their children and friendship for the women.

In the early parts of the novel, Marlantes sets the scene – his knowledge and appreciation for Finland, its culture and history, is palpable, and he uses his extensive knowledge to build a solid background for what develops into a riveting story that is sometimes extremely uplifting and often painful, as the tragedy at the center of the book unfolds. Marlantes’ story telling is vivid and powerful, the energy of his words always pulling us forward.

And I have to note that Karl has mastered his material – the descriptions of cross country skiing through bitter cold Finland are brilliantly portrayed. Be prepared to feel the cold in your soul.

This is another terrific novel from an outstanding writer whose skills are constantly evolving. And Karl is always a pleasure to speak with. Please enjoy our conversation and I hope you will pick up this book.

“For the history lesson alone, Cold Victory is memorable.”—Mark Steve’s, NY Journal of Books

Karl Marlantes graduated from Yale University and then was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, before serving as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. He lives in Washington State.

Interview about Deep River

Interview about Matterhorn

Interview about What It Is Like to Go to War

Buy Cold Victory

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Sarah Neidhardt: Twenty Acres A Seventies Childhood in the Woods

Twenty Acres: A Seventies Childhood in the Woods – Sarah Neidhardt – University of Arkansas Press – Paperback – 320 pages – 9781682262276 – $29.95 – Published March 7, 2023. Audiobook and ebook versions available at varying prices.

Twenty Acres is a wonderful, rewarding family memoir that will resonate both for elder veterans of the sixties and seventies “back to the land” counter culture but most especially for their now adult children, of which author Neidhardt is one. She was just a baby when her quite intelligent, middle class, young, naive parents left Colorado Springs to move to an extremely isolated part of the Arkansas Ozarks, where despite being woefully unprepared and underfunded, they managed to build a cabin and set out to live their lives and raise their children away from the materialist world they came from.

Their idealism was quickly met with the harsh realities of country life, of course. Sarah Neidhardt’s early life with her struggling parents and her siblings was not easy, and the crushing poverty and difficulties they endured as a family are reconstructed by Neidhardt as a way to understand her early life in deeply rural Arkansas. Still, the book is filled with many joyful and humorous moments – it’s not an altogether dark story, but a complex one that is filled with the ambiguities and complexities of family life in any time or place.

This story is similar to other back to the land adventures I’ve read that did not end well, or ended with the participants deflated by the rigors of a life they were never prepared for, though it is different from some because of the relatively extreme isolation the Neidhardt family experienced. Communards had it better in some ways than those who set out on their own in places where the culture was so deeply foreign to their generally urban or suburban backgrounds and counter culture values. But the underlying conflicts of culture, education, expectations, and the challenges of rural life really are common for so many of the children of the counter culture, unwilling participants in what was generally a short-lived socio-political explosion that had long lasting ramifications for its youngest and most innocent participants (even as that era’s most deeply held values and beliefs have survived and become entwined in modern culture in so many important ways).

It’s been more than fifty years since the era of the hippies, and books like this one will help set down and explain the history of that brief period of time, when so many young people thought we could change the world for the better. Talking to Sarah about her book, her family, and the process of writing their story was rewarding for me and I hope for all who listen to our conversation.

Sarah Neidhardt has worked as a bookseller, secretary, paralegal, copyeditor, and stay-at-home mother. She grew up in Arkansas and Northern California and now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and teenage son.

“Disillusioned with the modern world and idealistic about living closer to nature, Sarah Neidhardt’s parents packed up from Colorado–a place that some other back-to-landers would seek out–and moved to small, isolated Fox, Arkansas to attempt living completely self-sufficiently and off-the-grid. In this memoir, Neidhardt examines her memories from that time, and also pinpoints one of the most particularly problematic parts of the back-to-the-land movement, which is that many of its participants were anchored in privilege. … A memoir infused with both empathy and inquiry.”—–Wendy J. Fox, Electric Literature

Author website here.
Buy the book here.

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Lee Klancher: The Farmall Century 1923-2023

The Farmall Century 1923-2023: The Evolution of Red Tractors and Crawlers in the Golden Age of International Harvester – Lee Klancher – Octane Press – Hardcover – 9781642341393 – 384 pages (11.8 x 10.5) – $59.95 – October 26, 2023

This fantastic coffee table book is a massive, well-researched, detailed, extensively illustrated, and very readable history not only of the International Harvester Farmall tractor, but of the people and company that built, marketed and sold it all over the world. Even if you have no interest whatsoever in tractors as motorized, wheeled devices, this story is compelling. Farming was once what the majority of Americans did for a living, and while the numbers of farmers has declined steadily during the last hundred years, the industries that emerged in the industrial age to convert American agriculture from horse to engine driven agriculture were a crucial part of the story of modern America and the world we fed (and still, to some measure still feed).

As a history of an important part of our agro-industrial economy, The Farmall Century is indispensable. If you are interested in American history, this book will captivate your imagination and make you think about the incredible ambition, ingenuity, inventiveness, and commitment of so many individuals who built these industrial companies, and you will also find reasons to think about the downsides of our industrialized agriculture too.

Lee Klancher probably knows more about tractors and farmers than anyone you will ever come across. He not only writes and takes photographs for his books, he is also the founder and operator of the leading tractor related book publisher, Octane Press, in Austin, Texas. I interviewed him about Octane for the Publishing Talks series back in 2016 because I think the kind of focused niche publishing he does is so interesting.

In any case, I love anything with wheels, and even though I did not grow up on a farm and have never driven a tractor, I had a great time reading Lee’s beautifully written and produced Farmall book. Talking to Lee about it was an additional pleasure. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. Here’s a link to the book, and here’s a link to Octane Press, which is a fun site to visit also. There are plenty of tractor books there, but much more too, a great many treats, especially if you like wheeled vehicles.

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John Oakes: The Fast: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Promise of Doing Without

The Fast: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Promise of Doing Without—John Oakes—Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster—Hardcover —9781668017418—320 pages—$30—February 13, 2024—ebook versions available at lower prices

If you’re expecting to find a “how to guide to fasting” you will have to look elsewhere. John Oakes is far too good a writer and thinker to spend his time writing something simple like a guide book or even a “rah rah” tome aimed at encouraging you to take up the idea of “intermittent fasting” for yourselves. You might decide to try it out after reading The Fast, but that’s not his purpose and not why you should want to read this book. If you are already engaged in fasting, you should read this book. Perhaps it will be most especially useful during the meditative moments while you are in the midst of your own fast.

Oakes is more interested in a deeper approach to this practice, giving it historicity and enabling us to explore for ourselves how denial of a core bodily function can alter consciousness and help us better understand ourselves. This kind of antidote to the habits of modern life does have an appeal to many of us, but even if you are not going to be a practitioner, you will find yourself captivated, as he is, by the science, history, philosophy and spiritual background of fasting and the denial of physical needs. For Oakes, the ideas and the connection to human spirituality are as important as the specific practices themselves. I’m glad of that, as it makes reading this book that much more rewarding to engage with.

I will also note that Oakes, who has been an editor and publisher for many years, is a really terrific writer and therefore you can read this book for the pleasure good writing affords. As I am sure many of you who listen to this podcast have noticed, there are a lot of badly written books out there and no one wants to spend their limited time reading them. Given the vast number of choices of what to read, it is a particular joy to discover a really good writer. Bravo Oakes for spending a lifetime learning how to write, and bravo Avid Reader Press for publishing this book. I hope you will consider reading it yourself after you listen to our conversation here. Whether you decide to fast or not. For myself, much as I like this book, I am happier eating than not, even if it is an indication of my generally shallow approach to spirituality.

I’ve known John Oakes for a number of years through our mutual involvement in independent publishing. He is currently the publisher of The Evergreen Review. He is also editor-at-large for OR Books, which he cofounded in 2009. OR has been a singularly contrarian publisher for many years, built to demonstrate an alternative approach to traditional reliance on a certain popular online bookseller. Oakes has written for a variety of publications and The Fast is his first book.

We had alot of fun talking together about John’s book. Enjoy…

You can buy The Fast here. 

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Chris Yogerst: The Warner Brothers

The Warner Brothers by Chris Yogerst, Foreword by Michael Uslan – University Press of Kentucky – Hardcover – 9780813198019 – 360 pages – $34.95 -September 5, 2023. eBook and audio book versions are also available at lower prices.

My grandfather, Jacob Wilk, worked for Warner Brothers as their east coast representative for almost thirty years, and my father wrote for television and film, as well as books, some of which were about Hollywood. I grew up on stories about “the old days” of Hollywood and my grandfather’s lifelong love of theater and film. He died when I was five years old, so any book that might offer even tidbits about his life and work is always of interest to me. But even beyond my personal connection to WB, stories about the Jewish immigrants who almost all rose from poverty to become the creators of so much of modern American cultural experience are compelling for me to read about.

There have been any number of books written about the rise (and fall) of the Hollywood studios. I think Chris’s book stands out for a number of reasons. Yogerst details the story of the Warner family’s journey from Poland to midwestern America, and then its leap into the emerging movie business, where their success was built not only on risk taking, but the combined talents of its various family members. And Warner consistently took risks both in business and in the content of its films. More than any other film studio or production company, Warner represented the cultural dynamism and more than most the energy driven by the changes of the twentieth century.

The seventy-five year arc of this book documents the complicated Warner family along with its cinematic output and engagement with American culture, politics and world events. Of all the books about the glory years of Hollywood, I think this one might be the best. It was a great pleasure for me to talk to Chris about the book and to listen to what he has to say about the Warner brothers first hand. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Chris Yogerst is also author of Hollywood Hates Hitler! Jew-Baiting, Anti-Nazism, and the Senate Investigation into Warmongering in Motion Pictures and From the Headlines to Hollywood: The Birth and Boom of Warner Bros. He is an associate professor of communication in the Department of Arts and Humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Find him on Twitter @chrisyogerst as well as Instagram and Facebook @cyogerst.

Buy the book at Bookshop.org

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Chris Jones: The Swine Republic: Struggles with the Truth about Agriculture and Water Quality

The Swine Republic: Struggles with the Truth about Agriculture and Water Quality – Chris Jones – Foreword by Tom Philpott – Ice Cube Press – 9781948509404 – 400 pages – $29.99 – June 1, 2023

When I saw the title of this book, I knew I would want to read it. How could I resist?

Ice Cube Press is an Iowa-based publisher that consistently publishes books that while often are focused on Iowa stories, readers anywhere should be reading. This book consists of a series of blog pieces written by Chris Jones while he was a Research Engineer with IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering at the University of Iowa. As a scientist, Jones knows what he is talking about, and because he has been deeply involved in water issues in Iowa, probably understands not only the hydrology but the politics, economics, and sociology of Iowa as well as anyone, maybe better.

I learned so much from this book. It is incredibly informative, and while it is absolutely only about Iowa and its water, environmental and political issues, what Jones talks about applies in so many ways to almost every place in America (and the world). Because there is so much mind-boggling information in this book, as I was reading it, I found myself telling everyone I talked to some of the amazing facts about Iowa that I had never known. And unlike alot of coastal residents, I am have actually spent time in the midwest, and have been to Iowa more than a few times.

Every one of you who reads this introduction and everyone who takes the time to listen to this podcast should buy and read The Swine Republic! If you don’t live in or near Iowa, it is true that alot of the contents of this book will be obscure and relate specifically to people and places you will never know. But beyond the details of water politics, stream pollution and fertilizer run-off in Iowa, and the condition of the drinking water in Iowa, the meta-story (or subtext if you prefer) here is about how modern industry and industrial agriculture have grown too powerful, and how we as citizens must find ways to force ourselves and the structure of our civilization to change – or else, as it seems to me, the changes will be forced upon us in ways that we cannot fully grasp now, but which we can be certain will be more painful when they are upon us.

If you’re like me, when you think of “Iowa,” you immediately visualize farms, rolling hills of corn, and rural life at its most quintessentially American. Of course this is complete nonsense and has been for a very long time, but I doubt that even most Iowans don’t share that image. In reality, Iowa, as Chris Jones describes it, is really a feat of engineering, a vast hydrological construction topped by immense amounts of chemical fertilizer and animal waste that pollutes the groundwater and waterways of the state while agribusiness interests reap equally vast profits and its citizens, landscape and wildlife suffer the consequences.

There are way more pigs in Iowa than people, and as Jones points out, the animal waste produced by Iowa’s pigs, cows, turkeys and chickens is about equal to what a human population of 168 million produces. Unreal. Aside from the incredible data and facts you will learn, you will also gain a much clearer understanding of the intricacies of power and money in modern American agriculture, truly from the ground up. It is not a pretty picture. I really enjoyed reading this book, meeting Chris Jones and talking to him for Writerscast. I am sure we could have gone on for many more hours and I wish we could have done that. Please take a listen.

Chris Jones holds a PhD in Analytical Chemistry from Montana State University and a BA in chemistry and biology from Simpson College. Previous career stops include the Des Moines Water Works and the Iowa Soybean Association. As an avid outdoorsman, he enjoys fishing, bird watching, gardening, and mushroom hunting in both Iowa and Wisconsin. While he spends most of his time in Iowa City, he is especially fond of the Upper Mississippi River and the Driftless Area of Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. He recently retired from the Univ. of Iowa.

“Truly brilliant—new ways of thinking about stuff that’s right in front of us. I guarantee this will make you see not just the Midwest but the whole world considerably differently.”—Bill McKibben, author, The End of Nature

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Baron Wormser: The Road Washes Out in Spring

The Road Washes Out in Spring: A Poet’s Memoir of Living Off the Grid – Baron Wormser – Brandeis University Press – 9781684581603 – 214 pages – paperback – $24.95 – March 7, 2023 – ebook versions available at lower prices

Baron Wormser is a poet and prose writer whose work I have been familiar with for many years. Back in the 1970s, he and his wife Janet, moved to rural Maine as part of the “back to the land” wave that had been inspired by hippies and the Stewart Brand’s influential Whole Earth Catalog and especially the writings of the now almost mythic Helen and Scott Nearing, vegetarians who pioneered simple living in the 1930s and 40s.

His memoir of that time was originally published almost twenty years ago and now there is a new edition of this meditative, almost poetic narrative of simple living.

Baron and his family lived in a house they built in Maine with no electricity or running water. Much like the Nearings, they raised (and canned) much of their own food, carried water from their well, and read through the long winter nights by the light of kerosene lamps.

As Wormser states early in this book, living off the grid was not meant to be a statement of anything. In fact, as complete novices to the life they set out to live, it turned out that they had built their house in a place that there was no electricity and initially they could not afford to pay to have power lines run to their house. As time went on, they embraced the simplicity of their rural lives and learned from their experienced neighbors, for whom life was not a choice and “lifestyle” would have been a meaningless term.

Wormser refuses any simple understanding or explanation for the lives he and his wife chose for the twenty five year period during which they raised their children and became integral to the local community. He writes about nature and the simple life without sentimentalizing anything, appreciates the good and faces the difficulties head on without failing to note the complexity of everything we prefer to think of as simple. He is a careful thinker and writer, and his poetic self is a presence at all times.  Here is a lovely excerpt from the book:

If there is such a thing as a mutable eternity, it is snow falling in the woods. I am thinking of a windless, steady plummeting. Nothing is moving except for snowflakes. You can hear the snow faintly ticking on the pine needle branches. You can hear it descending—a soft sift of air. You are held in the hand of something enormous yet gentle, something extraordinary yet calming, something evanescent yet quite palpable (from a Latin word meaning “to touch gently”). Every surface receives the snow in its way. A large, fallen, curled maple leaf collects the snow in its center. A boulder”s stored heat resists the snow at first. Then its surface turns wet as if it were raining. Then with un-boulder-like delicacy a thin frizz accumulates. On top of the garden gate a fragile white skein begins to perch. Little, almost derby-like hats grow on the garden fence posts. The mown grass around the house fills in gradually. The stiff, frozen blades seem like little heights. Then the snow, as it mounts, receives itself. Another landscape is created and for months we live in that landscape.

When I was in my twenties, I shared the impulse to “head for the country,” where I tried and failed to make a go of living on the land. I greatly admire and appreciate what the commitment that Baron and his family made to live in Maine for a quarter century. And it was a deep pleasure to read this memoir of that time.

In 2000 Baron was appointed Poet Laureate of Maine by Governor Angus King. He currently resides in Montpelier, Vermont, with his wife. In 2009 he joined the Fairfield University MFA program. He works in schools with both students and teachers. Wormser has received the Frederick Bock Prize from Poetry and the Kathryn A. Morton Prize along with fellowships from Bread Loaf, the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 2000 he was writer in residence at the University of South Dakota. Wormser founded the Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching and also the Frost Place Seminar. His most recent book of poetry is The History Hotel, published by CavanKerry Press.

In other rooms and beyond those rooms
So much was occurring that went on happily
And unhappily, indifferent to protocols,
Brimming with anemones, half-heard melodies,
Averted glances. 

(from “Elegy for the Poet Adam Zagajewski”)

Author website

Buy The Road Washes Out in Spring

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