Light snow, bare branches.
It’s easier now to see
Deep into the woods,
Loss upon loss settling
Under a lattice of ice.
Phillis Levin is the author of six poetry collections, including An Anthology of Rain and Mr. Memory & Other Poems, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is the editor of The Penguin Book of the Sonnet.
CASEY WALKER
But don’t misunderstand: these are funny books, not cynical ones, and they are tight and propulsive, not sagging or perambulatory. There’s always a dignity to continuing to pursue your errands, however fruitless. You meet a lot of oddballs along the way, for one.
THEODORA BAUER
Katica only saw her sister angry once. That was a long time ago, she must have been seven or maybe eight. Her father was still alive. It was a cold winter evening, it got dark early. She went with her father to the village. Her hands tucked into two thick mittens, through which she was chilled to the bone.
NATHANIEL IAN MILLER
Making characters emphatically (and believably) themselves, rather than contrivances, or collections of quirks, or pawns to move around, is always my goal. The same is true for animals. Too often, animals are just two-dimensional devices.
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