Happy 2023, folks. My resolutions this year are to organize, downsize, and appreciate my resources. Because even when I was a woman, I didn’t need this many handbags. Caps for Sale! R.L. Maizes’ satire piece at Electric Literature, “On the Eighth Day God Attended a Writing Workshop,” imagines giving feedback on Genesis: Levi, flipping through
January Links Roundup: God’s Second Draft Read More »
A highly eventful year on the Block! Made My Bones: My third full-length poetry collection, Made Man, was published in March by Little Red Tree, with cover and interior artwork by friend-of-the-Block Tom W. Taylor a/k/a The Poet Spiel. Solstice Lit Mag calls it “a comitragic, day-glo accented, culture-hopping, snort-inducing, gender-interrogating rollercoaster of a ride.”
Reiter’s Block Year in Review: 2022 Read More »
Happy Spooktober! At the Naumkeag Pumpkin Show last weekend. The entertainment world lost two legendary women this month, both of whom continued creating and performing well into old age. Country star Loretta Lynn died last week at age 90. Best known for her hardscrabble childhood anthem “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Lynn also used her music to
October Links Roundup: Farewell Divas Read More »
You just never know what you’ll find at Adam’s favorite superstore. I suppose Lovecraft’s Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young needs those jumbo-sized cans of tomato sauce to feed all the kids. A bit late with the link-o-rama this month because I’ve begun Year Two of the Temple of Witchcraft Mystery School.
September Links Roundup: Cthulhu at Costco Read More »
Poet and memoir writer David Kherdian is the author of numerous books about Armenian-Americans and working-class life in the Midwest. His most recent poetry collection is Blackbirds Over Aurora, an account of an Oregon community based on the mystical teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff. He has kindly allowed me to publish one of his newest poems
Poetry by David Kherdian: “The First Problem and the Last” Read More »
Readers know I have mixed feelings about the “always already” trans narrative, but it does say something that my favorite movies as a teenager were “Some Like It Hot” (musicians fleeing the Mafia have to cross-dress to hide in a women’s dance troupe) and “Dead Poets Society” (boarding-school boys read poetry to each other in
July Links Roundup: Live Poets Society Read More »
Last month I had the pleasure of co-hosting a Zoom book talk with Canadian novelist Jessica Pegis, “Divine Non-Duality and the Queer Body”. We read excerpts from my gay male coming-of-age novel Two Natures (Saddle Road Press, 2016) and her new book The God Painter (Stone Table Books, 2021) and explored their common themes of
New Reviews for “Made Man” and a “Two Natures” Book Talk Video Read More »
I left Christianity because… …the people who took its mystical, supernatural, and personal transformation aspects most seriously are the people currently turning our country into a fascist theocracy. …the paradigm of redemptive sacrifice of the innocent was counterproductive to my healing as a child abuse survivor. …I couldn’t keep fighting for space for my bodily
The Reactionary Pull of Sacred Texts Read More »
I had a whole list of links to recommend this month, and then Politico broke the story today about the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that seems likely to overturn Roe v. Wade. As feminist journalist Jude Doyle lays out in chilling detail in “We Have Entered the ‘Anti-Gender’ Endgame” at Medium, the Court’s proposed
May Links Roundup: Courting Fascism Read More »
Barbara Regenspan is a poet, scholar, and opinion writer who has taught leadership in social justice-focused education at Colgate University. Her books include Haunting and the Educational Imagination. Now, her debut full-length poetry collection, The Chessmaster’s Daughter, is available from Cayuga Lake Books. This collection combines lyricism and philosophical inquiry, meditating on the tensions between appreciation
Two Poems from “The Chessmaster’s Daughter” by Barbara Regenspan Read More »