Page 2 of 3 < >

Poet's Choice

Discussion Policy

Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

across thick lawns under maples in borrowed tennis whites.

It is like the photographs of Randall Jarrell

I stared at on the backs of books in college.

He looked so sad and relaxed in the pictures.

He was translating Chekhov and wore tennis whites.

It puzzled me that in his art, like Chekhov's,

everyone was lost, that the main chance was never seized

because it is only there as a thing to be dreamed of

or because someone somewhere had set the old words

to the new tune: we live by habit and it doesn't hurt.

Now the thwack . . . thwack of tennis balls being hit

reaches me and it is the first sound of an ax

< 2 >

Find More Reviews and Features in Books

War stripped of all its glory

In "The Good Soldiers," Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Finkel faced an unenviable task in writing his on-the-ground account of war in Iraq.

Who do men say that I am?

Though too cursory to work as an intro to the Gospels, Mary Gordon's "Reading Jesus" should appeal to anyone who wants to wrestle with the problems and paradoxes of the New Testament.