Household God
Down in the cellar there’s a household god. He is drinking up the planet. He has little eyes in his belly, Which are his thoughts, Evidence that he may be thinking. They’re blinking. One, then another. Sometimes two at … Read More
As Daylight Once Was
Last night a storm gleaned the last leaves from trees in our courtyard, made a chartreuse cemetery on mulch, exposing ribs of houses once hidden behind profuse canopies. Like a man wanting a child, alone on his couch watching … Read More
un/folding
In the U-Haul leaving Chicago, we traverse the tall scaffold of the Indiana Skyway. I reach out the window for something concrete, pull back my hand to find candle flames flickering, crushed moths. I’m motherless now & daughterless yet. … Read More
New Issue Available (#46)
The new issue has been sent out, so if you subscribe or have ordered copies, you should be receiving them shortly. If you are interested in subscribing or purchasing an issue, you may order from the website or by emailing … Read More
After Innocence: Good Bones by Maggie Smith (Tupelo Press, 2017) and The Amoeba Game by Tara Skurtu (Eyewear Publishing, 2017)
Like The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, her collection steeped in Grimms’ Fairy Tales, Maggie Smith’s Good Bones is preoccupied with the perils and mysteries of the rites of passage a child must make on the way to … Read More
The Knock of the Blade: Until We Are Level Again by Jose Angel Araguz (Mongrel Empire Press, 2018) and Hard Child by Natalie Shapero (Copper Canyon Press, 2017)
The pervasiveness of a father’s ghost in José Angel Araguz’s Until We Are Level Again reminds us that old memories that threaten our equilibrium also provide, in poems, breakthroughs for the haunted. The ghost for Araguz is twofold: his father … Read More
Refuge: Said Not Said by Fred Marchant (Graywolf Press, 2017).
There’s no ignoring the body, whether in the form of “a cough that was odd,” “a callus ripped open,” or “a peach pit wet and red as the cancer they’ve removed.” Fred Marchant records these physical moments in his … Read More
To Reclaim the Body: Thrust by Heather Derr-Smith (Persea, 2017)
I once heard the poet Jane Hirshfield say that all true poems are compassionate at heart. To test her theory, she explained, she thought of the least compassionate-seeming poem she knew: Philip Larkin’s “This Be The Verse.” It passed … Read More
Salamander Reading at Mass Poetry Festival: May 5, 2-3 p.m., Salem/ 211 Bridge Street
Ben Berman, Danielle Legros Georges, and Kelle Groom, whose poetry appears in recent issues of SALAMANDER, will read from their new and recent work, in honor of SALAMANDER’s 25th anniversary. Ben Berman’s new collection, FIGURING IN THE FIGURE, was published … Read More
Suffolk Poets at Boston Poetry Festival
Fred Marchant, George Kalogeris, and Jennifer Barber will be reading at this weekend’s Boston Poetry Festival. Details for Friday afternoon are below. For full schedule, please go to: Boston National Poetry Month Festival https://www.bostonnationalpoetry.org 12:10-4:30 pm, Keynote Poets Boston Public … Read More
Salamander Reading and 25th Anniversary Celebration
Please join Salamander for a 25th Anniversary Celebration and Reading Thursday, March 1, 2018 6-8 pm Suffolk University Poetry Center Mildred F. Sawyer Library, 3rd Floor 73 Tremont Street, Boston Salamander’s 25th Anniversary celebration, which will take place at … Read More
Poet Jane Hirshfield to read at Suffolk on Feb 7, 7 p.m.
A great opportunity to hear West Coast poet Jane Hirshfield read in Boston. She will read at Suffolk University’s Blue Sky Lounge & Commons in Sargent Hall, 5th floor. Sargent Hall is located at 120 Tremont Street. The reading is … Read More