RUSSELL ATKINS

Now past 80, Russell Atkins still has the power to astonish. Though it has been some time since his last full book, he continues to post poems to the small presses of America. This week's mail brings the latest issue of Kenneth Warren's long-running HOUSE ORGAN, including work by his fellow resident of Ohio Atkins. Here's the first stanza of "Mad Meg (After Breughel)." Read the full poem in HOUSE ORGAN 59, Summer 2007:

dishes ashamed away drawers

their gaps shut up cabinets

scour'd white; silverware in its slot's bed

soap's wept absent from the platter

free of sorrowful waste;

dishcloths long wrung dry,

hung up; dishtowels dehydrated,

laid away, launder'd into morgued

--everything like guilt as mum,

territory is everything