WORDS
This is where you will find my unpublished poems and fiction, reviews of works by other authors, and guest posts.
The Last Town On Earth: A Recent Novel on the 1918 Pandemic
It is the autumn of 1918 and a world war and an influenza epidemic rage outside the isolated utopian logging community of Commonwealth, Wash. In an eerily familiar climate of fear, rumor and patriotic hysteria, the town enacts a strict quarantine, posting guards at...
The 1918 Pandemic As Seen By John O’Hara
Think in the Morning continues our look into the literary memories of the 1918 Pandemic. Our first read was Pale Horse, Pale Rider. Katherine Anne Porter gave us an unforgettable memory of the impact of the Spanish flu and the Great War on a young couple whose paths...
Look Homeward Angel and The 1918 Pandemic
Previously on Think in the MorningPale Horse, Pale Rider: Katherine Anne Porter’s Classic Story of the 1918 PandemicWilliam Maxwell’s They Came Like SwallowsThe 1918 Pandemic And Willa Cather’s One Of Ours Then, under the terrible light which fell directly and...
Book Review: The Lady With Balls by Alice Combs
Midwest Book Review just published an abridged version of our book review on Alice Combs’ The Lady With Balls. The full review is below. I don’t want a mirror telling me I’m the fairest in all the land; I want another intelligent adult’s honest opinion. Alice...
The 1918 Pandemic And Willa Cather’s One Of Ours
Previously Discussed Literature On The 1918 PandemicKatherine Anne Porter: Pale Horse, Pale RiderWilliam Maxwell: They Came Like Swallows This grey wall, unshaken, mighty, was the end of the long preparation, as it was the end of the sea. It was the reason for...
William Maxwell’s They Came Like Swallows
To deal with pandemics, read about them. That’s my advice.The 1918 pandemic did not inspire much literature of its own. World War I sucked up all the paper and ink with such greats as Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet On The Western Front (1928) and Hemingway’s...
Some Personal Thoughts On Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet
“Cruelty to animals will get you punished, but cruelty to humans will get you promoted.” (as one of Brit's friends said to her at the immigrant detention center where she worked in Ali Smith's SPRING) In a previous blog I explored Ali Smith’s Autumn, the first of...
Guest Post: Origami Place by Hayden Jones
Origami Placeby Hayden Jones In the origami place,origami pelicans soar through the sky.In the origami place,stars shine bright.In the origami place,origami boats sail through the ocean.In the origami place,you can stop and smell the origami tulips.In the origami...
Book Review: Autumn by Ali Smith
[Click on BLUE links for sources and information] We are living in a culture that insists on lying as its delivery of how we are living,” she said then. “It insists on telling us information about which we are left wondering whether it is true or not … Fiction and...
Poem By Think in the Morning: Micpapalotl
In remembrance of Francisco Toledo [REVISED] Micpapalotl (The Black Witch Moth) In Oaxaca the rains end lateIn the Fall and thoughts turnTo life and death and fateAnd to what we might learn About death from the deadWhen they come to visitAs it is often saidThey do. ...
Poem by Think in The Morning: There Ain’t Any Tree
There Ain’t Any Tree There ain’t any treeGreen with leavesOr hung with blossomsThat remembers the snow as it fell Upon my father’s faceOr the grass outside the hospitalWhere my sister and brother died.That grass, so full of itself. That grassWaving in the...
Guest Post: There Was A Time – by Merlin Tinker (Barry Weiss)
[Click on BLUE links for sources and information] Most of us in Mendocino know Merlin Tinker (Barry Weiss). At Think in the Morning we were delighted to hear from Barry and to discover that he had a number of scribbles as he calls them depicting some of his...