Despite the prevalence of happy romantic heroes, I’m most interested in the ambiguous love story. My favorite titles show that the land of love can be treacherous terrain – emigration, murder, parental illness, getting pregnant by a stranger. Sometimes, the lovers even die – shot in bed, buried in a cave, or made to disappear
In the spring of 1983, poet Eileen Miles went for a walk in Manhattan with her friend Tom. There was probably nothing remarkable about this walk, only that the “lights gathered around the buildings” looked particularly beautiful that day. As they sat and smoked and looked across the Hudson River toward New Jersey, two friends
5am and it’s me and the birds. This is how I like it: when the house is sleeping. Outside, the low rumble of sanitation trucks. A lone scooter screeches down the block. Sometimes helicopters hover. A different kind of writer might pause to name the local birds (mourning doves, blue jays), open an ornithology app,