Michael Tyrell For Rachel Wetzsteon (1967-2009) The friend, the late formalist who slips into my last REM cycle— whose new language I can’t get or hear in the swarming dream-terminal, but it’s urgent to try, there’s something she must tell me now, holding my wrist rougher than she means to— leaving a mark I know you won’t believe. You’ll say I’m wrong, it’s crazy, the wrist’s barely black & blue. As usual,...

Bruce Snider See the brown mutt bleed through its garland of burrs, a torn possum drooling dried streaks of foam, lice-flecked raccoons on the yellow line, split wide. See how wholly they open to us in death, to the moon, to the red elm scabbed with mites. They open to riverbeds and the song of the wren, to flowering plums and the barbed wire fence. Over and over they open to carrion birds catching scent, beginning to rise. Even...

Robert Wrigley We were to know we would never know as much about it as he did. He knew we didn’t care and believed his knowing was evidence. He was a scholar, a critic, a wielder of wit for it, its minutiae and mysteries, which, for him, were no mystery at all. Machinery, maybe. Cogs and pistons, the pinioned heart in the heat of it. Someone asked about love, the fool. Our backs ached. The sun was relentless. He leaned on his hoe...

The RPM Challenge continues.  Into the second week and I’ve got five unnamed rough tracks.  I’m unclear exactly how things are shaping up, as I’m too in the middle of it to get a clear sense of direction.  I do notice a piano-driven impulse on these, and I’m enjoying some experimentation with mini-moog.  I got in my obligatory dub vibe, but I tried to subvert the reggae form by accenting the down strokes, giving...

Fresh off his publication in "The Best American Short Stories 2011," the award-winning author discusses John Cheever, New York City, and the search for truth.

The former Squirrel Nut Zippers singer records three acoustic tracks from her new album, "Madly Love."

Brendan Constantine There are people our eyes can’t ride. My grandmother had an expression for it in Greek: Our eyes fall off them. Who don’t you see? What do they make plain instead? Have you thanked them? It’s probably relative. That is, not a question of beauty or character but rather, where you’re standing & when & how long. Today I said hello to someone who didn’t answer. No telling which of us wasn’t there....

Brendan Constantine I put my hand on her stomach and feel for the baby’s head. Earthquake season. After a beat, it finds my palm, nuzzles. I sense other movements, a fumbling in the dark of this woman. The couple downstairs are blind and clumsy. Their daughter is ashamed of her sight and pretends to stumble all day. The baby kicks twice, like its foot is caught on a rug. Yes, like that, I think and move my hand. Long ago, animals...

Dolorean founder and frontman Al James discusses some of the themes at work in the his band’s latest album, The Unfazed.

To mark the paperback release of his latest novel, "The Passage," Ben goes deep with acclaimed author Justin Cronin.