Reading room

Writings

Writing came first, and it still underwrites everything else. These are prose pieces, poems, and prose poems. They tend to follow people who move at their own difficult speed, and to stay with what resists being resolved.

Selected pieces Each begins with its first lines — the doorway a reader steps through.
Prose poem
Jaroslava
English

“She was a woman who took three times longer to walk from her house to the bar than from the bar back home.”

Read the full piece
Prose poem
Doesn't Matter Any More
English

“Heavy is the hand with which I write this. Heavier than when I use it to punch. Heavier than when I use it to lift the tenth glass of hard liquor.”

Read the full piece
Short prose
Sava — or Fog Behind Glasses
English

“Like every day, as he was leaving his apartment, he carefully collected the fog that was gathering behind his glasses.”

Read the full piece
Poem
Summer Poem for Simone and His Clarinet
English

“Will you hitchhike with me across Europe? The road is, I think, ready.”

Read the full piece
Prose · in four parts
In the Thick of Thought
English

“A swinging-legged walker with thighs that seemed almost to shake off of her bones stopped right in front of me.”

Read the full piece

Every piece can be read in full here. For readings, translations, or the longer manuscripts, write to me.