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Category: Literature

The latest news in the literature scene in Door County along with reviews, creative writing and news about The Hal Prize.

  • Blue Gems

    By ,

    Every September, when driving down our road,

    I see Mr. Charney’s sign: PLUMS FOR SALE.

    Beyond it sit rows and rows

    of little green dimpled cardboard boxes

    bubbling with blue plums on a sawhorse table.

  • A Vicious Cycle

    By ,

    Mikhail Dodnik probably knew better than anyone else that Dalmatia was one of the most politically unstable nations in the world. It had changed governments no less than three times in 12 years.

  • The Tin Roof

    By ,

    On general principles I hate chickens. My impulse to hate chickens is a cosmic thing; cows poop nicely, chickens do not. Cow poop obeys gravity, least most of the time, chicken poop doesn’t.

  • Searching for the Beach

    By ,

    The bright white sand beach did seem to stretch for miles in both directions from the wide wooden staircase as we had been told. Uncountable striped and solid color umbrellas gleamed in the intense sun with uncountable children running, shouting and splashing in the small waves.

  • American Life in Poetry: Column 231

    By ,

    This column originates on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and at the beginning of each semester, we see parents helping their children move into their dorm rooms and apartments and looking a little shaken by the process.

  • A Review: Damas, Dramas and Ana Ruiz

    By ,

    Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz

    By Belinda Acosta

    Grand Central Publishing, 2009

    Once upon a time, your baby girl was a snuggly little sweetheart.

  • Small Pencil Etudes

    By ,

    #17:  In the Renaissance

     

    Imagine this:

    There were no PCs in the Renaissance.

    No Apples, iPods, Thinkpads, “cells.

  • A Very Special Birthday

    By ,

    Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Casey, Princess Siera awoke to bright sunlight streaming in through the window of her gold and white bedchamber.

  • American Life in Poetry: Column 230

    By ,

     

    It’s been sixty-odd years since I was in the elementary grades, but I clearly remember those first school days in early autumn, when summer was suddenly over and we were all perched in our little desks facing into the future.

  • Words on Water: A Ferryman’s Journal, Washington Island, WI By Richard Purinton Cross+Roads Press, 2009

    By ,

    Words on Water is a gem of a book authored by Richard (Dick) Purinton and published recently by Norb Blei’s Cross+Roads Press. The subtitle, “A Ferryman’s Journal, Washington Island, WI” is more instructive about the book’s contents than is the title.

  • Used Books Wanted for Book Sale at Marina Fest

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    Too many books on your bookshelf? Well, it’s almost time for the gigantic book sale at Marina Fest in Sister Bay, and donations of books, videos and CD’s are needed.

  • Poetry Doodles

    By ,

    I am intrigued by spiders and other small beasties except when they choose to intrude upon my premises. Few tasks are as humbling, therefore ennobling, as the shelling of peas.

  • A Most Impressive Night in New York City

    By ,

    When she said she had accepted a job offer from Time Inc. at New York City headquarters, we gasped and clapped. She was graduating in June and was the first college graduate I knew, male or female, who already had a real job.

  • Shadows of the Past

    By ,

    Franz Hindler owned a shoe repair shop over on Dickens Avenue just behind Steger’s grocery store. An enclosed porch to the west of the shop completed the two-story building and looked down on a small yard carefully arranged into an enchanting flower garden.

  • On Swallows

    By ,

    A late summer evening. The sun like a cheap drunk is sliding off of its high stool. The air has cooled and the vault of the sky hinting of a more cosmic realm, Venus in there trying to sprout.

  • American Life in Poetry: Column 228

    By ,

    I don’t often mention literary forms, but of this lovely poem by Cecilia Woloch I want to suggest that the form, a villanelle, which uses a pattern of repetition, adds to the enchantment I feel in reading it.

  • American Life in Poetry: Column 228

    By ,

    I don’t often mention literary forms, but of this lovely poem
    by Cecilia Woloch I want to suggest that the form, a
    villanelle, which uses a pattern of repetition, adds to the
    enchantment I feel in reading it.

  • Poems From an Old Friend

    By ,

    The annual Pulse Writer’s Exposé is just around the corner. As a way of looking forward, we look back to some poems by Shirley Smith Wilbert whose work has appeared from time to time on these pages.

  • American Life in Poetry: Column 227

    By ,

    Jane Hirshfield, a Californian and one of my favorite poets, writes beautiful image-centered poems of clarity and concision, which sometimes conclude with a sudden and surprising deepening.

  • A Review: Crooked: A History of Cheating in Sports

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    Crooked:  A History of Cheating in Sports
    By Fran Zimnuich
    Taylor Trade, 2009

    You probably heard your father say it when you were a babe in arms.