The Quintessential Shopping Mall Love Story

I love shopping, especially when it is necessary. It takes me a week to complete a day of shopping. Hunting down the perfect match between me and the product is a an exhausting adventure. But some unions are made in heaven, and some people understand that the business principle of optimizing satisfaction stems from rather spiritual aspirations. Here is the poem The Quintessential Shopping Mall Love Story, published in Public Republic, I wrote commemorating a rare new year's shopping trip with my husband. Needless to say, he acts like a very traumatized human being every time I mention the word "mall." He has also tried to teach me the male way of shopping, which includes a prior visualization of the product, a beeline to the item and a credit card transaction, all in less than 2 minutes. Oh, the sacrilege!

Cannons and Slippers

In 2010, The Evergreen Review published my humorous poem Cannons and Slippers . The Evergreen Review was founded in 1957 by Barney Rosset, the publisher of Grove Press. He provided a tribune for pivotal debuts and further writings by Beckett, Genet, Bukowski, Kerouak, Borges, Nabokov, Neruda, etc. According to the submission guidelines, Barney Rosset, who passed away this February at the age of 89, was the first one to read all submissions and made all final decisions. I feel very lucky and honored that one of the smartest and most influential publishers and editors of American letters appreciated the humor and irony with which I invariably approach themes from popular culture. Understandably, after this Schwarzenegger-inspired noir poem, I digressed towards communication with Andy Warhol on the issue of contemporary visual culture.