@sloopie72

And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else. - Walt Whitman (find me at Blue Sky)

 Maine
sloopie72.wordpress.com
Joined February 2009
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Starting BASS2026: What's Love Got To Do With It? "...[S]hort stories are the most seductive literary form." #BestAmericanShortStories2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Starting BASS 2026: What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Look – I know all about poetry’s reputation for romance, its alluring powers, the sly ways verse woos with line breaks and slant rhymes, but please consider what I know to be true after two y…

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Thoughts on reading Dianne Hale's charming book, 𝘓𝘢 𝘉𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢 𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢: 𝘔𝘺 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘈𝘧𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘐𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘯, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥’𝘴 𝘔𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘌𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦. sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Dianne Hales: La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, The World’s Most Enchanting Language...

Italians say that someone who acquires a new language “possesses” it. In my case, Italian possesses me. With Italian racing like blood through my veins, I do indeed see with different eyes, hear wi…

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Pushcart 2026 L: Wrapping Up Year 50 It was a very good year - thank you, #PushcartPrize2026 . Here's a list of my favorites. Oh, and I have a few questions for readers of these posts... sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Wrapping Up Year 50   

Here are 77 brilliant selections from 62 presses, plus lists of special mentions. Our devotion extends to all of the editors and writers worldwide who helped to gather this Small Good Thing, our 50…

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"The frame changes everything." Thoughts and feelings on reading Wendy Brenner's wonderful article, “Don’t Bleed on the Artwork: Notes From the Afterlife” from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Wendy Brenner, “Don’t Bleed on the Artwork: Notes From the Afterlife” (non-ficti...

We are not a museum, just a tiny, scruffy, neighborhood frame shop in Evanston, Illinois, a Chicago suburb known for Northwestern University and the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, for its …

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"This was the way of our relationship. I fussed. She cussed." Thoughts on reading Jane Kalu's short fiction, "Sickled", examining the psychological effects of genetic illness on a family, from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Jane Kalu, “Sickled” from American Short Fiction #79

Uche Okeke, Owls, From the Oja Suite, 1962, ink on paper The first time I ever saw an owl was in the backyard of our childhood home in Enugu. That afternoon, my sister Ije stood by the guava tree f…

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"I will not tell you // what it says. He taught me loyalty, too." Thoughts on reading Michael Mark's poem "Devotion": first it scared me, then it broke my heart. From #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Michael Mark, “Devotion” (poetry) from Birmingham Poetry Review #51

Because no tools can be carried on the plane, I buy them at the Home Depot near his apartment and sneak into my father’s building through the Service Only entrance. Dad’s Ford has more dents. One o…

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"All of us were negotiating an informational world without algorithmic search engines." Thoughts on reading Stephen Akey's essay, “The Department of Everything” about his work as a NYPL telephone reference librarian, from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Stephen Akey, “The Department of Everything” (non-fiction) from The Hedgehog...

 THR illustration: a reference desk in a Michigan library, 1980s, AADL.org. How do you find the life expectancy of a California condor? Google it. Or the gross national product of Morocco? Google i…

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"This is the meaning of 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺:" Thoughts on reading Suzanne Cleary's poem, “It Is Said”, reflecting on the importance of Dante to the Italian people, from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Suzanne Cleary, “It Is Said” (poetry) from The Southern Review #60.1

Illustration from Medieval Manuscript of Dante’s Inferno 17 It is said that until 1950 every Italian could recite by heart twenty-five lines of Dante, … Uh oh, she’s doing poetry again…. Yes,…

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"An Uber Man embraces the ugly and turns it into the sublime." Thoughts on reading Nadir Jabur's philosophy-based short story, "The Uber Men" from #PushcartPrize2026 . sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Nadir Jabur, “The Uber Men” from Tint Journal, Spring 2024

DaVinci: Fight between a dragon and a lion The coldest Christmas Eve on record and it was hands down my biggest order ever. I’d been driving for almost a year since The Daily Witness fired me. I us…

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"After three weeks in the Big Apple, he was reduced to playing his tuba on subway platforms." Thoughts on reading the hilarious - and sadly accurate - short story “One Writer Against Oblivion” by Mark Brazaitis. sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Mark Brazaitis, “One Writer Against Oblivion” from Prime Number Magazine #263

Inevitably I’m asked, “Why devote a paper, much less an entire dissertation, to Plutowsky?” I have a two-part answer, the first of which is my personal connection to Plutowsky via his great niece, …

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"We know what it whispers, why it whispers:" Thoughts on reading Bruce Beasley's poem "Like Mowing the Grass" from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Bruce Beasley, “Like Mowing the Grass” (poem) from The Hudson Review #76.4

LIKE MOWING THE GRASS The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows. —Robert Frost, “Mowing” Fed up with my angel-ridden, Latinate dirges, my sophomore poetry professor kept telling me to write a…

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"Alfonso had become unrecognizable to himself." Thoughts on reading Uche Okonkwo's short fiction, “The Harvest” from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Uche Okonkwo, “The Harvest” from Tin House

He had married Inimfom eight years ago for her faith in him, for how readily she’d gone to the places he had envisioned. Before they were married, she would sit in his congregation, week afte…

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“Why am I here? That cosmic question has just gotten real specific.” Thoughts on reading Lou Mathews’ short fiction, “Desperate Times, Desperate Crimes” from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Lou Mathews, “Desperate Times, Desperate Crimes” from New England Review #45.3

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Guy Fawkes said that, and so did Esmerelda, Gustavo’s daughter, when I went to visit him at the hospital. Gustavo is my landlord of seven years, owner o…

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"Was that a philosophical joke? I wondered. Did philosophers make jokes?" Thoughts on reading Joanna Kavenna's short fiction "The Beautiful Salmon" from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Joanna Kavenna, “The Beautiful Salmon” from Paris Review #247

Egon Schiele: “Agony” (detail) I’ve always loved salmon. Not to eat, as I don’t eat fish, but I’ve always loved salmon in general because salmon jump and no one knows why. They jump all over the pl…

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"Now, we were faced with a question. " Thoughts on reading Peter Hong's flash fiction, "Golgori," from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Peter Hong, “Golgori” from Berkeley Fiction Review #44

Julie Lueken: ‘Forgiveness” (repositioned) Golgori was our god, and for as long as we could recall, we had been under his dominion. He was a proud god, a commanding god, and for millennia, we had l…

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"Eventually my company put me on paid leave. My wife was kind and supportive. She reminded me to take my Ativan." Thoughts on reading Avigayl Sharp's short fiction, "Diane" from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Avigayl Sharp, “Diane” from Granta #168

I loved the anonymous chat app. I downloaded it on my computer. I downloaded it on my phone. I was lonely, and the anonymous chat app made me less lonely. I couldn’t sleep, and the anonymous chat a…

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"For me, one of the most subversive images in art is a Black man resting — not dead but resting — his body not compelled to work for anyone’s gaze." Thoughts on reading Roger Reeves' essay "When The Prince of Heaven Sleeps" from from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Roger Reeves, “When the Prince of Heaven Sleeps” (non-fiction) from Emergence #5

When I think of a sleeping Ali, I also think of other images of iconic Black men in domestic spaces, and the way that that domesticity, in my eyes, acts as a protestation of capitalistic time, a sl…

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"The bit, Roy explains. That whole massive animal is controlled through its mouth." Thoughts on reading "Rich Strike," Christie Hodgen's wonderful lead-off story from #PushcartPrize2026 sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Christie Hodgen, “Rich Strike” from Story #20

Fuck it, is the general feeling here, because we are minimum-wage employees in a doomed independent bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky, because what we do is useless… fuck it because no less than fo…

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Pushcart L: Year Fifty Starting this year's read a little late. But it's time now. sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Pushcart 2026 L: Year Fifty

Sometimes, I realize while staring at the billions of suns in the night sky, 50 years is a really long time. I can’t comprehend what has happened. The whole Pushcart span is a mystery to me a…

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"The words on its pages tell one story. But the book itself tells another one." 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 (Matayoshi, Yoshitake, trans. Heitzman) surprised me, then broke my heart, then put it back together. sloopie72.wordpress.com/2026…

Naoki Matayoshi, Shinsuke Yoshitake: The Neverending Book (translated by Kendall Heitzman) (Norton...

There was this one book with the names of two, er, unusual men printed on the cover. It had been created in the Kingdom of – no need to get into details. What was the book about? The story went som…

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