Shearwater covers David Bowie’s “Look Back In Anger”
"Since springing from the rib of Okkervil River, Shearwater has always made music bigger than the capacity of the clubs they play . . . Meiburg seems to be personally willing the… Read More
“The Dogdays” by J.V. Cunningham
“Cunningham's (1911-1985) precisely bitter epigrams deserve more admirers. Like Ben Jonson's, Cunningham's best lines often state his moral or stylistic goals: ‘The classic indignation, / The sullen clarity / Of passions in… Read More
“My Father’s Dante” by Ernest Hilbert
"Ernest Hilbert is known for the sonnet, and rightfully so. In Caligulan, he doesn’t so much break free of that but makes it clear that whatever he does, whether with subject, verse… Read More
“Dog Days (Caniculares Dies)” by Ernest Hilbert
In his debut collection, Sixty Sonnets, Hilbert establishes a variation on the sonnet form, employing an intricate rhyme scheme and varied line length. A skillful practitioner of form and nuance, Hilbert shifts… Read More
“The King’s Bed” by Penny Boxall
Penny Boxall graduated from the University of East Anglia with an MA with distinction in Creative Writing (Poetry). Her debut collection, Ship of the Line, was published by Eyewear in 2014. She… Read More
“The Antikythera Mechanism” by Eric Thomas Norris
Eric Norris lives in Portlandia, USA. His poems and short stories have appeared in Soft Blow, Assaracus, Jonathan, The Nervous Breakdown, Glitterwolf, The Raintown Review, and E-Verse Radio.… Read More
“Light Illumined” by Ernest Hilbert
"As anti-pastoral as Hilbert can be, he shares Robert Frost’s commitment to describing impressions as precisely as possible, which may offer, as it did Robert Frost, a 'momentary stay against confusion,' even… Read More
“Bertrand Russell’s Chicken” by Nic Aubury
Nic Aubury was born in Watford in 1974 and grew up in the Midlands. He read Classics at Oxford and now teaches Latin and Greek for a living. He had a chapbook… Read More
“The Toadstone” by Reagan Upshaw
Reagan Upshaw is a poet and critic living in Beacon, NY. His poems, articles, and reviews have appeared in Bloomsbury Review, Boston Review, Hanging Loose, the San Francisco Chronicle, Light, Poets… Read More
“On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness” by Arthur Guiterman
Arthur Guiterman was born of American parents in Vienna, graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1891, and was married in 1909 to Vida Lindo. He was an… Read More
“Insomniac” by Rebecca Watts
Rebecca Watts was born in Suffolk, England in 1983 and now lives in Cambridge, where she works in a library and as a freelance editor. In 2015 a selection of her work… Read More
Caligulan Lands in London and London Takes a Bite Out of It
Through the kind ministrations of noted bookseller and celebrated poet John Clegg, the London Review Bookshop (LRB) in London is now plentifully stocked with copies of my latest venture, Caligulan. … Read More
“How easy it was, to stand and look at the stars” by Ben Mazer
Ben Mazer was educated at Harvard University, where he studied with Seamus Heaney, and at the Editorial Institute, Boston University, where he studied under Christopher Ricks and Archie Burnett. His poem which… Read More
“We Are Experiencing Delay” by Caoilinn Hughes
Irish writer Caoilinn Hughes' first collection, Gathering Evidence, was published by Carcanet in 2014. She recently moved from New Zealand (where she completed her PhD at Victoria University of Wellington) to the… Read More
“New Jersey” by BJ Ward
"In poems that both honor and transcend his blue-collar roots, BJ Ward blends poignancy and humor with downright good storytelling, and takes his place among the bright up-and-coming voices of his generation."… Read More
“Spell for an Orchard” by John Clegg
John Clegg was born in Chester in 1986 and grew up in Cambridge. He studied for a PhD at Durham University. In 2013, he received an Eric Gregory Award. His first collection,… Read More
“Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” by Robert Archambeau
Robert Archambeau is a poet and literary critic whose works include the books Citation Suite, Home and Variations, Laureates and Heretics, The Poet Resigns: Poetry in a Difficult World, and The Kafka… Read More
“Kite” by Ernest Hilbert Scored for Voice and Cello by Christopher LaRosa
Follow along with the score as you listen to Chris LaRosa's setting of my poem "Kite" for voice and cello, featured on ContemporaryCompositionXX's youtube channel, performed by Rachel Mikol and Will Rowe,… Read More
“I, Too, have Been to the Huntington” by J.V. Cunningham
[Cunningham's poems] "difficult as they are to place in the stream of American and English poetry, are of unusual interest. They are the products of a talent which is emphatically and avowedly… Read More
“Independence Day” by John Poch
John Poch has published four collections of poetry. His most recent, Fix Quiet, won the 2014 New Criterion Poetry Prize. He teaches in the creative writing program at Texas Tech University. His… Read More
“The Night my Sister Went to Hollywood” by Hilda Sheehan
Hilda Sheehan's debut collection is The Night my Sister Went to Hollywood (Cultured Llama Press, 2013). She has also published a chapbook of prose poems, Frances and Martine (Dancing Girl, 2014). … Read More
“Summer Scream” by Ernest Hilbert in the New Issue of Per Contra
My light-hearted summer "horror" poem "Summer Scream" appears in the new issue of Per Contra, an international journal of the arts, literature, and ideas.… Read More
Images of The Book Collector, a New Opera by Composer Stella Sung and Librettist Ernest Hilbert
Until now, I've only been able to share images taken on cell phones and smaller cameras, which you may have seen here. I've finally received some of the professional photographs taken of… Read More
“14-Year-Old with Two Friends on Bikes Outside the Wawa on Germantown Ave” by Mark Danowsky
Mark Danowsky’s poetry has appeared in About Place, Beechwood Review, Cordite, Elohi Gadugi, Grey Sparrow, Mobius, Right Hand Pointing, Shot Glass Journal, Third Wednesday and elsewhere. Originally from the Philadelphia area, Mark… Read More
“Evening Landscape” by Leonard Gontarek
Leonard Gontarek is the author of six books of poems, including He Looked Beyond My Faults and Saw My Needs and Déjà vu Diner. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review,… Read More
“Fathers and Sons” by David Mason
"David Mason's poems are about moments of realisation. Something is otherwise. Something has been learned with pain and still it won't settle. There are families moving through houses and institutions, ageing, losing… Read More
“From the Balcony on Heavy Metal Tribute Night at the Trocadero” by Ernest Hilbert
"Per Contra began publication as an online quarterly in the fall of 2005. Our name indicates our intention to offer more than one way of looking at the world. You can… Read More
“dirty martini” by Ryan Eckes
"Ryan Eckes' VALU-PLUS continues his incisive, wry, sincere, & gorgeous examination of the city- landscape. In Eckes' work, the city—Philadelphia, specifically—cannot be contained, but is well lived in & observed & explored.… Read More
“The Lion for Real” by Allen Ginsberg
"Ginsberg is both tragic & dynamic, a lyrical genius, con man extraordinaire and probably the single greatest influence on American poetical voice since Whitman." - Bob Dylan… Read More
“Dummy, 51, to Go to a Museum, Ventriloquist Dead at 75” by May Swenson
"Swenson was a visionary poet, a prodigious observer of the fragile and miraculous natural world." - Priscilla Long… Read More