Last Bender

I have been wondering when, if ever, Americans were going to wake up and take to the streets in defense of their lives and communities, and now it seems to be happening, at least in Madison, Wisconsin. The Tea Party and its minions have been full of passionate intensity with brown shirt style attacks on [...]

The Jivin’ Ladybug is an exciting poetry journal I just came across via Silliman’s Blog. The link is to a poem by Will Alexander, and as always his hypnotic surreal jazz is compulsive, propulsive and explosive. i sometimes think Alexander is the only contemporary poet I can stand. He leaves theory shivering in its shorts.

from the Paris Review Interview, 2005: GILBERT: “I think serious poems should make something happen that’s not correct or entertaining or clever. I want something that matters to my heart, and I don’t mean “Linda left me.” I don’t want that. I’ll write that poem, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about [...]

When I was living in New Zealand there was a national radio station. On Staurdays, for 24 hours, the mike was handed over to the listeners to play whatever they liked. It was broadcast over the entire country. At 8pm one saturday I put it on as i always did and the citizen DJ in [...]

Holiday Gift Ideas From Buzz Callaway Books. If you are looking for that special book for that special reader in your life this holiday season then look no further, Last Bender has just what you need. This year I will make 4 suggestions: James Hanley: The Ocean A ship is torpedoed and the five people [...]

Friend and fellow scribbler Cara Hoffman and I have decided to exchange posts. This is a short short. Cara’s book SO MUCH PRETTY is available for pre-order from the evil umpire. You are Nineteen There were hot winds that picked up in the evening, blew through the palms, pressed a wall of weight against you [...]

Alfred Starr Hamilton to the Rescue! A while back New Jersey poet Lisa Borinsky tracked me down in my office to ask if I had any Alfred Starr Hamilton material. Why would a totally unknown poet and novelist living in Ithaca have any archival material relating to an obscure poet who at first appears to [...]

Ethyl Eichelberger I never saw Ethyl Eichelberger  perform and I did not know him, but I waited on him a lot from 1985-1987 and saw him around the east village in the years that I lived there. he was a lovely man in those contexts. He was 10-15 years older than much of his audience. [...]

THE QUESTION The question most writers face is, “What if no one wants to hear what I have to say?” This is not the same question writers also face, which is, “What if I have nothing to say? The answer to that question is, “Then don’t say anything, don’t write, and for god sake, don’t [...]

GYULA KRUDY: SUNFLOWER SUNFLOWER is a novel of deep nostalgia, written in 1918 by the great Hungarian novelist, journalist and storyteller Gyula Krudy. Set in the Magyar homeland, it narrates in long meandering dreamlike passages a year in the life of its heroine, Eveline. Eveline lives in a divided world, that of cosmopolitan Budapest and [...]