Author Archives: Risa Denenberg

I spent the past 6 days going to a morning poetry workshop at the Port Townsend Writers Conference with a group of 12 poets, led by Ilya Kaminsky. If you are a poet and you’ve never met, or work-shopped with … Continue reading →

I’ve been slowly and painfully reading Claudia Castro Luna’s stunningly beautiful book, Killing Marias (Two Sylvias Press, 2017), in which she celebrates in elegiac poems the “disappeared women” of Juarez, Mexico. Of course, these stories portray the same conditions that women … Continue reading →

Twenty Years of Dead —for Jon (1956-1993) There’s not a lot of love that isn’t brutal, but we had our East Village dives that didn’t open for Sunday liquid-brunch until 1 pm and Monday nights at the G&L community center … Continue reading →

My day is permeated with a vague sort of sadness, making it difficult to want to post a Sunday blog. What to do with sadness? With the sense that needed words will not come or won’t be enough? Only the … Continue reading →

Empty Clip, Emilia Phillips (University of Akron Press, 2018) At the publication of Empty Clip, this is how Emilia Phillips, introduced it on her twitter feed: This is my “book of fears” It is true there is much fear in … Continue reading →

“In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day.” Continue reading →

The awful year at work finally over. I’ve settled into a less toe-curling job. I’ve even started to float by drinking water and dropping liquid tears.  Losing weight is a losing endeavor, but I go to the gym—occasionally—and lift weights … Continue reading →

if only every day  began with bird song sun warming my shoulder coffee cup close by book of poems in hand, and purring cat on lap   What I am reading this Sunday: Boyishly, by Tanya Olson (YesYes Books, 2013)– … Continue reading →

Mourning after Murders —For the murdered at Pulse, Orlando 6/12/2016 I knew I was changed when memories began pouring over the disquiet and despair tempering and cleansing me into a dwindling bar of soap, shapeless as tallow dissolved in a … Continue reading →

Faith’s Cavity Faith is the slight stalk clutching tight the baby tooth to its root. If it won’t let go, a father might tie a string and slam the door. A mother might calmly let it fall among the bedclothes … Continue reading →