Here are eight poems I wrote between 1974 and 1981. Unlike the poems in the two part-series I published a couple of weeks ago, which had never seen the light of day, I shared these with friends and others, and I revised them from time to time. They
Can We Talk, Please?
The only way we will stop being a nation torn apart is to find humility in ourselves. That word, “humility,” jumped out at me last Wednesday evening during a Zoom discussion held by my Amherst college classmates and Professor Austin Sarat. The topic
Poems Salvaged from 1975 and 1976: Part II
For the introduction to this two-part series, please go to https://adrianspratt.com/poems-salvaged-from-1975-and-1976-part-i/ 19. July 13, 1975 I wrote this poem during my summer working for a community action agency in rural North Carolina. As far
Poems Salvaged from 1975 and 1976: Part I
I wrote poems all the time from adolescence on until, in the spring of 1976, a widely respected professor assessed some samples as “un-illusioned,” which was good, but lacking “music,” a death knell. I still wrote poems into the 1980s, but few and
What Is It With the Apocalypse?
Why do I have such a visceral aversion for dystopian fantasy and apocalyptic fiction? After a friend convinced me to read Ling Ma’s Severance (2018), a debut novel that has lately garnered a lot of renewed attention, the reasons for my resistance
To Complain or Not to Complain: Ten Considerations
When do we choose to let bygones be bygones? How do we decide when to let go and when to pursue? I’m unhappy with one of the lawyers who handled my father’s estate. In deciding how to proceed, I was aided by conversations with several friends and