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Tales of the Sixties: My Father Delivers [by Alan Ziegler]
In 1966, my father buys an Arnold bread route in Astoria. Technically, he is self-employed—he owns the truck and the territory, and he buys the bread from Arnold then resells it to the stores—which…
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Sleights of Word [by Daniel Westover]
You probably remember Mallarme’s response when Degas told him he had a great idea for a poem: ‘Alas, my dear, poems are made of words, not ideas.’ Of course there are ideas in…
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Next Line, Please: When Two Strangers Meet and . . . [by David Lehman]
For the first Next Line, Please contest of 2015, David Lehman invites readers to finish a paragraph that he's begun with a provocative sentence fragment. Here's how Lehman introduces the challenge: I like keeping…
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When My Father Died in a Poem, or Actions that a Man Might Play [by Daniel Westover]
Father, since always now the death to come Looks naked out from your eyes into mine, Almost it seems the death to come is mine And that I also shall be overcome. –…
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No Petting [ by Charles Coe ]
I have a friend who wants me to get a cat. Actually, she wants me to get two cats. “That way they won’t get lonely when you’re away,” she says. “They can keep each…
