Blog Mistress Jessica L. Walsh talked with poet Kiara Nicole Letcher on her new book Oxblood, available for purchase here. JW: When reading Oxblood I thought of the poem “The Quiet House” by one of my favorite poets, Charlotte Mew, which contains a line stating “Red is the strangest pain to bear.” The pervasiveness of…
Author: agapeeditions
A Conversation about Growing
As blog mistress for Agape Editions, I recently had the chance to talk with the creative pair who bring us Growing, the first release from our Kumquat Books children’s imprint. Mélusine Thierry, author, and Z.A. Pappas, illustrator, answered a few questions about their moving and joyful book. JW: Tell me about a book from your own…
To love the people doing their best: Jay Halsey on Barely Half in an Awkward Line
Agape Blog Mistress Jessica L. Walsh had the opportunity to interview Jay Halsey on his remarkable new collection from our Haunted Doll House imprint Barely Half in an Awkward Line. JW: Tell me about the process of creating this book. Did pictures give rise to texts? How did image and word interact throughout the composition…
One Can be Damned While Still Living: An Interview with Mihael Pelin
Hillary Leftwich recently had the chance to interview Mihael Pelin, author of Agape’s new release Vourdalak and Other Stories / Who Casts No Shadow. HL: What are you reading these days? How do you feel about the work(s) you’re currently reading, and why? MP: I am finishing up Anne Birrell’s translation of The Classic of…
Where the Real Trouble Begins: An Interview with Alais Escobar Henri
As an author, Joanna C. Valente is no stranger to themes of violence, power, loss, and pain. They have also written extensively on tenderness, beauty, bodies, and human flaw, as well as produced considerable web content over the years regarding art and fashion. Consequently, we could think of no better advance reader than Joanna to…
A Brief Note Regarding Our Poetry Month Posts
Our Blog Mistress, Jessica Walsh, has had to pause this project for the time being to attend to some personal matters. We are uncertain at this time whether the project will be picked up again at a later date, or simply ended here (we are leaving that up to her). Thanks for following along with…
My Grandmother, Langston Hughes, and the Work of Interpretation
I often characterize my maternal grandmother as “hard to love.” And she was. Her emotions were kept tight, though she made her disapproval readily apparent when I did things like try to drink pop out of a can or chew gum. Her reserve made my mother’s life difficult in ways that I can’t really imagine….
Not Pinning God Down: An Interview with Katie Manning, author of Hereverent
by Jessica L. Walsh Katie Manning is quietly doing more in the literary community at any given time than I could possibly do, so obviously I asked her to do more by answering a few questions about her profoundly wonderful book Hereverent, now available. Read on for a recent poem that blows me away. JW:…
“Headlong”: “Love Poem” by Linda Pastan
Yesterday I worked as an election judge. I was there by 5 am, turnout was light, and the day just dragged. About 12 hours after I had arrived, I looked up to see my husband walking through the doors, and I felt a surge in my chest, like my heart was flipping. He’d received a…
“You are going somewhere”: “Hush”
Jessica L. Walsh Today I’m writing about a living poet, Liz O’Connell-Thompson, who happens to be a wonderful person I’ve had the privilege of meeting a few times around Poetryville. The poem is a short one: Hush On nights without sleep,remember rattling down the highwayin the back seat where you learnedthe curves of the way…
24 Words: “We Real Cool”
Gwendolyn Brooks herself really wished we’d all think about reading her other poems and give this one a minute of rest. But the reason this poem changed me involves multiple layers of experience, so there’s a bit of a different spin here that I hope would give me a pass to bring it up yet…
Transformada: Noche Oscura del Alma (Dark Night of the Soul)
“Poems that changed me” is a fairly broad and amorphous phrase. And it sounds hopelessly idealistic. I remember on my first day of grad school, my literary theory prof asked each of us why we were there. Everyone had very intellectual, jargon-y answers, and then I said something like “I think literature can tell us…
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