New Poetry with Audio!

Donald Revell
Stephen Burt
Paul Hoover
Jonah Winter
Cathy Wagner
Reginald Shepherd
Nin Andrews
Sophia Kartsonis
Sandra Miller
Joshua Harmon
Devin Johnston
Chuck Zerby
Sara Henning
Ognjen Smiljanic
Lance Phillips
Peter Drake
Kathleen Byrne
Ernest Hilbert
Garth Greenwell
Marc McKee

Criticism

Brian Henry on Kinsella
Gabriel Welsch on Northrop
Gabriel Welsch on Smith
Cecily Iddings on Ruefle
Christopher McDermott on Wenderoth

Jonah Winter’s first book of poems, Maine, was released in 2002 by Slope Editions.

Book Reports

I. Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong was a man.

His skin was colored black

but he played the trumpet.

When he played the trumpet,

Louis Armstrong puffed his cheeks out

like this.

His eyes would roll back up into his head.

He also sang.

In one song he has, there is the words

“Life can be so sweet.”

Louis Armstrong got put in jail once.

I’m not sure why

but maybe it’s because he loved a white lady.

I think that part’s in the movie.

II. Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth has two legs on the ground.

He played baseball.

That’s because when he was young,

somebody gave him a baseball glove.

He ended up in a hospital bed.

But before that, he has once said

“I never knew you could do something you like

and they would give you money for it.”

He was called a Babe

because his face looked like a baby.

He had 590 homeruns.

III. Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was a man.

He sat in a dark theater.

After he was dead,

you saw statues of him everywhere.

They all made him sitting down.

That’s because Abraham Lincoln

had nothing but the highest regards for negroes.

That’s also why he wore a tall hat.

IV. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in a wheelchair.

Some people liked him a lot.

Other people thought he was a bad guy.

He was related to another president

called Theodore Roosevelt.

Theodore Roosevelt shot animals,

big animals, like moose, and gorillas.

He had them stuffed to make them look like they were alive again,

and then they went into the museum.

Everybody likes looking at the elephants.

V. George Washington Carver

He invented peanut butter.

His name comes from a president.

He was also a negro.

Basically, that’s very important.

He stood in a field much of the time.

I think he was holding a hoe.

Or maybe it was a rake.

VI. Mozart

Someone made Mozart play the piano.

He did it.

He died.

VII. John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy said “Ich bein ein Berliner.”

I guess that means “I am from Berlin.”

What did he mean by that?

Because it says here that he was from Boston.

My uncle, who lives near Boston,

and was in the navy,

and who won boxing prizes while he was in the navy,

but now he’s a nice man who gardens and likes Mexicans –

he said he hates John F. Kennedy.

He says John F. Kennedy is a snob.

John F. Kennedy started the physical fitness program.

He made people fight in the jungle.

His famous thing he said was

“You have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Wait, he didn’t say that, maybe.

They have a museum in Dallas, Texas

where John F. Kennedy was shot.

It has his name on the museum

but inside there were just dolls

that they keep in plastic bags

VIII. Lee Harvey Oswald

He leaned out of a window.

There were cars going by.

One car had John F. Kennedy in it.

They took Lee Harvey Oswald in the jail.

Some people thought he was a Russian.

Some people think John F. Kennedy is still alive

on the top floor of the Parkland Hospital.

I like Irish folk music.

IX. Jack Ruby

My father did a painting of Jack Ruby

the week before he died.

Jack Ruby, that is.

The problem was – my father painted the coffin first

and made it too short for Jack Ruby’s body.

When he got to the feet,

my father had to make Jack Ruby’s legs shorter

so they are fitting inside his coffin.

X. Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera had a boyhood.

It was filled with things like skulls,

crucifixes, garlic, onions, and many things

I didn’t have time to find out about.

Diego Rivera grew up to be a man.

When he was a man, he loved many ladies.

But most of all, he loved one

more than any of the other.

Her name was Frida Kahlo.

She was also an artist.

Some people think she was better than him.

But I think he painted murals

that made people proud to be Mexican.

XI. Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando is Italian.

He’s also an American Indian.

But he speaks English.

His voice is very small,

but he is very big.

He beats up on people he doesn’t like.

He once knocked down a photographer who made him mad.

Later, he didn’t accept an award.

He said it had to do with being an American Indian.

But officially, he’s Italian.

XII. Johanssen

Johanssen was a boxer.

He was born in Sweden

but he lived in the U.S.A.

People think Swedes are stupid,

but they’re just quiet.

They don’t want to say too much

cause they’re really listening really close

to what everyone has to say.

Of course, sometimes no one’s saying anything.

They’re just all sitting around the coffee table.

XIII. Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ was a famous Hebrew from Antiquity.

He did good things for people

but one time he picked up a table and threw it.

Someone looked at him the wrong way.

XIV. Adolph Hitler

Adolph Hitler was born in Austria.

He ran with his knees spread way, way apart.

But in general, he was a really fast runner.

XV. George Washington

George Washington stood up in a boat.

He said “I cannot tell a lie,”

and then he started America.

That’s why he’s so strong.

The way his clothes fitted him

made him look a lot better

than other presidents, like, Thomas Jefferson, for example.

Thomas Jefferson looks like he wants to tell everyone what to do.

But George Washington just smiles.

XVI. Religion

A woman had went shopping.

She also had lived next to the railroad tracks

and she still does do that.

Her two children were playing on the tracks.

That’s when the man came out

and saved them from getting killed by the train.

The woman still does do all her shopping

but no one knows yet if the children are still

going to play where real trains are moving fast.

So, in other words,

there is a God.

And finally, people must go to church

so they won’t get run over by the railroad.

Or maybe it’s so their children won’t get run over.

Or maybe everybody want to go shopping.

Or maybe they just can’t help it.

Or maybe every living human is crying inside their window.

That’s why every window has a person in it.

XVII. Albert Einstein

Here’s a man who couldn’t help but have eyebrows.

He was born inside of a town.

When he grew up,

he wore all sorts of different clothes

including shoes.

One thing that makes him better than other people

is he could smile

even when he was thinking really important things.

Sometimes he just sat in front of a fireplace.

That was the night he got up

to look out the window.

When he looked up at the stars,

he kept on breathing.

XVIII. Mussolini

They hung him upside down next to his wife

who was also hanging by her feet.

The day it happened there was a lot of air

around where they were hanging.

They had on just normal clothes

which looked funny on two people who were upside down.

But no one laughed.

They were just all inside their house

with all the curtains closed.

They had had just about enough of things

that didn’t make any sense.

So they were just going to drink more coffee

and close their eyes as hard as they could.

XIX. Wild Bill Hickoff

Wild Bill Hickoff was a man who like to ride.

Riding allowed him to be as wild as he wanted.

When he rode, he only held on

with one hand.

In the other hand, he carried a shotgun.

He did that so he could shoot it at buffalo

or anything else.

He was mainly, though, surrounded by miles and miles and miles.

In the end, he shouted loud and had a beard.

He played the piano with one foot.

XX. Gordon Winter

His dates are 1891 to 1950, I think.

I know he’s not famous

but he was my grandfather.

He was dead before I was born.

His pictures make him look like a negro.

Someone said that’s because he worked in the fields and

just had a really dark suntan.

But my father says that he was part negro.

And so I guess that makes me part negro, too.

I guess the reason my grandfather died

is because he liked to read so much.

He was tall

and he never lost at chess.

One time my grandmother threw the chess pieces

all over the floor because they wouldn’t stop playing

and come to dinner, which was getting really cold.

XXI. Davey Crocket

Davey Crocket existed in the 1800s.

He wore a hat.

He shot people with a gun.

XXII. King Henry VIII

He weighed 500 pounds,

but only stood 4’ 7”.

And his shoes were size 12.

XXIII. Paul Revere

Paul Revere had three things wrong with him.

First, he didn’t know how to shave.

Secondly, he didn’t know how to ride a horse.

And thirdly, and most importantly,

he thought he could do both of these things.

Which caused him to cut his face up

and also fall down a lot.

That’s why he rode his horse at midnight.