Author: Jay Ruud
Douglas Dunn’s “The Kaleidoscope”
W.S. Merwin’s “To Paula in Late Spring”
Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”
In Search of Sylvia
by Stacey Margaret Jones Come for the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth and stay for the greatest American poet of the 20th century. That was my guiding principle on our June trip to the United Kingdom, where we arrived to see the Trooping of the Colour (and get great photos of the Cambridge kids as… Continue reading In Search of Sylvia
The Women of Troy
The Women of Troy Pat Barker (2021) If you can’t quite place the name Briseis, you can probably be excused. It’s not Hecuba or Hellen. It’s not Cassandra or Penelope. Briseis is simply a very minor character in The Iliad—albeit a significant one, since she is, according to Homer, the cause of the rift between Achilles… Continue reading The Women of Troy
Charles Bukowski’s “Oh, Yes”
Sharpe’s Assassin
Sharpe’s Assassin Bernard Cornwell (2021) Bernard Cornwell has at least three great virtues as a novelist, and a writer of historical fiction particularly. The first is his meticulous attention to historical detail, in manners, clothing, and other aspects of material culture, but most of all in his descriptions of military encounters. Weaponry, fighting tactics, even,… Continue reading Sharpe’s Assassin
William Butler Yeats’ “Lapis Lazuli”
In Search of the Brontës
Sometimes travel can be pleasingly serendipitous, as it was for us when we traveled to West Yorkshire, to the town of Hebden Bridge, on the trail of my wife’s favorite, Sylvia Plath, and her husband, Ted Hughes. We soon discovered we were in fact a scant eight miles from the town of Haworth—where, it turns… Continue reading In Search of the Brontës