Category: Non-Fiction

Battling the pandemic blues, I woke up on the morning after Halloween with an itch to hit the road. Because I liked the name of the place and because it was within an hour’s radius of Portland, I decided to set off for Amity,...

My whole life experience as a young boy can be told in a photo taken from the platform of the Smith-Ninth Street subway station in South Brooklyn. The station sits on a viaduct 87 feet above street level, a depression-era...

From Napoli il 26 dicembre 1916 by Giuseppi Ungaretti Il volto di stanotte e secco come una pergamena Questo nomade adunco morbid di neve si lascia come una foglia accartocciata L’interminabile tempo mi adopera come un fruscio...

The Nazis never did catch me. I was an explosives expert, and I was just too good for them. I could blast my way out of any situation, no matter how dire. I was seven or eight years old, growing up in the pretend war-torn...

I first read Kenneth Patchen’s “23rd Street Runs in to Heaven” when I was in my late teens while collecting all of the Pocket Poets editions published by City Lights. The Love Poems of Kenneth Patchen stood out for me because of...

Most of the families I grew up with were Catholics. Several households had eleven or more children. We played lots of street games, hot box, tag, touch football or tackle especially if it was Sunday and the Chicago Bears or...

  1963. The Bronx. The kitchen smelled of matzo brei and cheese blintzes from my Nana’s cooking. I sat cross-legged on the white Formica kitchen table in the dark; my skinny 10-year-old body hunched over. Over forty years...

I first sensed the power of borders when I swam with my brother, Mike, across the Delaware River. Mike was a strong, determined and kind big brother. Even as a child he could do anything. He built go carts, rode horses, and was...

My mother-in-law, Jane, was known for her pithy comments, particularly about others. Watching a heavy set lady in tight slacks from the rear, Jane would often remark, “Looks like two pigs fighting in a burlap sack.” A lady...

Only after starting to take my morning walks there did I learn that the neighborhood was called Sherwood Forest. Trees, including majestic redwoods with wide trunks and romantic, tall palms, dotted the yards of the mostly...

The Man Who Balanced A Tea Cup On His Head And Other Fugitive Pieces: A Memoir The waiting room was empty at 11:40 that day, that day of the appointment, the last appointment. Jack and I had been coming and going weekly for a...

Measure 1: My heart beats – not to the smooth and hypocritic gestures of the conductor or the rhythm leaping off my music. My heart beats in fear of discovery by those who sit near my voice close enough to hear. Classical music...