Christmas defeated Chanukah once again last night by a margin of three billion dolla… or so, but every time I hear a Yiddish word like bupkes

for Jim Cummins In Iowa, Jim dreamed that Della… twin. Dave drew a comic strip call… about a bearded beer-guzzler in Su… like Wallace Stevens

What is it about the Abyss that tempts the young poet to kiss the air and head for the nearest c… unreasonable attachment to the bli… of falling—what accounts for it? U…

Come on in and stay a while I’ll photograph you emerging from… like Frank O’Hara dating the muse… Talking about the big Pollock sho… than going to it on a dismal Satur…

for J.A., December 3, 1975 Ashes that survive the aftermath o… Bury the past bravely, retaining Only those messages that are least… And therefore most desirable

My bag was missing at the airport “Just one bag?” “Yes, but it mean… I had seen the bartender before, b… “You didn’t tell me you had been t… “Yes, I was at Magdalen College…

Remember when Khrushchev said “We will bury you!” on the cover of Time I thought he was

Light rain is falling in Central… but not on Upper Fifth Avenue or… where sun and sky are yellow and b… Winds are gusting on Washington S… through the arches and on to LaGu…

The woman said yes she would go to… Unless he heard wrong and she said… Where they could learn the tango a… Of Nazi war criminals unrepentant… But no, she said Australia. She’d…

I was about to be mugged by a man with a chain so angry he growled at the Lincoln Center subway stat… when out of nowhere appeared a tal… chubby-faced Hasidic Jew with pey…

Nothing extends a phone call more effectively than saying you’re on your way out but she wants to tell you the five things she requires

It’s my birtday I’ve got an empty stomach and the desire to be lazy in the hammock and maybe go for a cool swim on a hot day with the trombone in Sinatra’s

Some people confuse inspiration wi… not me I know it comes from the lu… you breathe it in you breathe it o… it’s the breath of my being the wi… of the waters yes but it’s also so…

In Rotterdam I’m going to speak about the state of poetry on a panel with a Pole and a Turk. It’s worth

For it was the first day of Rosh Ha’shanah, New Year’s Day, day of remembrance, of ancient sacrifices and averted calamities. For I started the day by eating an apple dipped in honey, a...