“A Girl Who Was the Victim of a Flood” / by: Larry Levis (poetry in Blackbird).  The writers I work closely with in the MFA program here have water on the brain lately (and always). This waterlogged poem demonstrates the awful with a cool, heartbreaking distance.

Here are a few poems by Derek Sheffield, a poet whose work I was introduced to recently via Verse Daily.

“The World’s Other Side” / by Derek Sheffield (poetry on The Poetry Foundation website).  A loss poem about the faraway, what we can’t see or seem to understand.

“An Accurate Account of the West” / by Derek Sheffield (poetry in Salt River Review).  Another poem by Derek Sheffield because I have been interested lately in the history of the American west.

“Delicious Apocalypse” / by Derek Sheffield (poetry in Orion).  Who doesn’t love an apocalypse poem?

“For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of WWII” / Mike Dash (nonfiction in Smithsonian Magazine).  And now for some nonfiction! This article in Smithsonian Magazine went viral recently, but I can’t resist posting it here, too. The story details a six-person family isolated in Siberia for decades with no other human contact. It describes the interactions between Soviet geologists and the family when the scientists stumble upon them in 1978. Everyone who reads this article is completely amazed by this family and their story.

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