Jennifer Bosveld

 Jennifer Bosveld's new book, From a Phone Booth in Paradise, is out from Rank Stranger Press and her Pudding House Publications is the largest literary small press in America. She has presented at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Book Passages in San Francisco, The Cafe May in Toronto and all over the country. She has edited 12 anthologies including the soon to be released Turtle Watch: Mystical Magical Turtles. Larry Smith of Bottom Dog Press calls Jennifer a "one woman poetry revolution."

small talk

I'll ask you what you had for dinner and

sometimes that's the most mundane direction

you'd ever catch me going. Stouffer lasagna

you say and I predict. The question has

brought me to understand how elegant your

life is, how simple your demands, that you are

not gluttonous, you're easy to please, have few

demands on your refrigerator or Giant Eagle.

Your answer is not qualified, this small dinner

isn't labeled good or bad. There are things

you don't have to have an opinion on. Not

every title must have a subtitle, not every

question needs an answer longer than it is.

If you thought it was small talk at least now

we know the value of small answers following

small questions.