Mischief

The first collection of poetry by award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, playwright, novelist, and composer Hal Hartley.

Selected from writing amassed over thirty years, these pieces range from short, funny modernist lullabies and bawdy lyrics to the nearly mystical engagement of the obsessive reader, onward to helpless rants about the state of the world and deeply moving reflections upon, and remembrances of, lost friends and failed efforts. However, throughout, this collection is an extended examination of conscience-the conscience of a citizen, an artist, a businessman, a very private and exacting thinker, struggling with "this gigantic love I only ever apologize for..."

ultra short stories

textual snapshots

situations described or imagined

strangers contemplated

real life adventures

occasional complaints

ache verbalized

some examination of conscience

mischief