Laurance Wieder

I can’t cry innocent in any court: Dogged by enemies, I ran, was caught. Pitched in a hole, my soul turned waste, Heart hollow rock not even wind might whistle through. Did darkness when the universe was torn from you Into its being, long for nothing? Hurry. Faces of the long departed, dim . . . . Continue Reading »

Hymns of Prudentius: The Cathemerinon; Or, The Daily Round Translated by David R. Slavitt. Johns Hopkins University Press, 80 pages, $19.95. The fourth-century Latin poet and father of the Church, Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, has always had an audience. Incorporated into the Catholic breviary, his . . . . Continue Reading »

The Husbands: An Account of Books 3 and 4 of Homer’s Illiad By Christopher Logue Farrar, Sraus & Giroux, 56 pages, $19 The Husbands is the latest installment of Christopher Logue’s “account” of Homer’s Iliad . With its companion volumes, the earlier Kings and War Music . . . . Continue Reading »

Mitch said: “I’m trying hard to live To seventy.” I think about it constantly: How half A century is an abyss not all Can cross- “This field, once, was home to brains And tigers-” And paint the mystery, how time (A wheel) Describes the line (that’s history) On earth Where people (at the . . . . Continue Reading »

I'm here because I hatedHeedless worshipers of words but trustA truth. I've known the eagle's and the worm'sEye view, and am quite happy with one roomThat's not a cell, have watched my musclesSlack my bones grown brittle, heard my stomachQuease around an empty table. One forgottenCup crushed by the . . . . Continue Reading »