Rectifying 2017
During its four seasons from 2013 to 2016, Rectify was no stranger to critical praise. Nearly a year after the series finale, I think it’s time to mention Ray McKinnon’s series alongside the usual...
View ArticleEntering the Age of Subtraction
I am entering the Age of Subtraction. Almost as if there existed an imperceptible fulcrum I had to get over, and I’m now finding myself sliding on the downside. So much of adult life until now was...
View ArticleProwling the Woods
My father told me that when he used to bird hunt through the Kilgore Hills in Northeast Mississippi, he would sometimes come upon a whisky still or two. This was back in the late thirties and forties,...
View ArticleAn All Too Ghostly Ghost Story: Part 2
Continued from yesterday. Four years ago, my wife and I moved into our red brick cottage. The living room and bedroom walls were a bright pink; the kitchen floor was green linoleum; a small yellow ball...
View ArticleThere is Only This Present Moment
I’m trying to trust in God. My husband has had chronic fatigue and chest pain for the five years since his quadruple bypass open-heart surgery. Sometimes less discomfort, sometimes more, but always...
View ArticleYou Can’t Hide from Winter
Winter is coming. All of northern Michigan seems to whisper the warning. The sun is slower to rise each day, and the mist clings to the lakes when I drive my children to school in the darkness. Our...
View ArticleI’ll Be Waiting Right Here
Apparently, running late may be a symptom of optimism, creativity, and literally perceiving time differently. That was cold comfort in the doctorâs waiting room. I had arrived early to be ready right...
View ArticleA Conversation with Alicia Ostriker: Part 1
Image issue #98 includes poems by critic, activist, and biblical scholar Alicia Ostriker, winner of the Jewish National Book Award and many others. She has said, “Composing an essay, a review or a...
View ArticleA Conversation with Alicia Ostriker: Part 2
“When I write a poem, I am crawling into the dark. Or else I am an aperture. Something needs to be put into language, and it chooses me,” says critic, activist, and biblical scholar Alicia Ostriker,...
View ArticleWaiting for Nothing to Happen
When I was in my twenties, toward the end of a not-especially-dissolute but nonetheless untethered youth, there was a period of a few months when I spent a lot of time with a man who had been the big...
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