_____________________________________________________________________ Jono Tosch is a poet, artist, non-fiction writer and fermentation enthusiast who lives in Northampton, MA. Last summer he took his blog, Oilchanges: the anti food blog food blog, to New Mexico on a reader-supported X-Country road trip. You can find his poems and whatnot by googling his name.

Forgive me if these writings on Eliot sound a bit English in their method and tone but I’ve been reduced to reading an American for the past few weeks, so my folly is at once forgivable. Eliot is, indeed, the most American of poets, if and perhaps especially because he abandoned America. There are other [...]

IMAGE: It is hard to have fun in graduate school or in workshops, but if you were sitting on a dock in Arkansas and watching bass boats speed by and the sun was setting in the west (since it does not usually set anywhere else) and you had a decent knowledge of iambic pentameter–or a [...]

in our bodies now orange blossoms _____over her childhood yard __________a grasshopper’s long arc __________grasshopper’s long arc _____over her childhood yard a shimmering shimmering _____on the motel window __________trickles of sweat __________trickles of sweat _____on the motel window a sickly flicker sickly flicker _____the tv’s radiant breath __________on her naked arm __________on her naked arm [...]

This entry is part of a series, Poetry Scenes» When I’m asked about poetry in Chicago, I’m inclined to reply with the old Quaker response: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But, all I really mean is that Chicago is distinct in its poetics because there is no system, no unifying center that explains [...]

Utah Did you fathom the distractions it takes to wash down grass when rain becomes solid and wasteful? Here you are the insistence of an object when that object takes me to your ocean. I want to know the 1912 about the way you dress your socks on winter nights when pigeons dare to roam [...]

There is a considerable amount of contention over the true source of the word “chapbook.” Scholars of Anglo-Saxon history and language contend that the prefix “chap-” is derived from the ancient word “ceap,” while others maintain it is merely a corruption of “cheap;” however, most attribute the word’s popularity to the chapman—European peddler, reporter, and [...]