“I think part of maturing as an artist is figuring out that the things that may have felt like a lack or an inadequacy can be strengths if you just double or triple down on them. Go all the way into the peculiarity and particularity of one’s own thinking.”
A Forensic Scientist of Myself and Everything Else: An Interview with Lauren Levin Read More »
The last year and a half, since Trump’s poorly attended inauguration, has been anything but quiet; the apocryphal “may you live in interesting times” applies. It’s been hard to keep up! A lot has happened, especially on Twitter! How is one to make sense of the lunacy? Perhaps the Iliad can help.
Mouth! King Mouth! Understanding Foreign Affairs in the Age of Trump via “War Music” Read More »
“Idiophone is a dance between Fusselman and her reader; Fusselman is always fully leading, sometimes at a stately pace, but most often at one that is allegro, even allegro vivace.”
Pas de Deux: Amy Fusselman’s “Idiophone” Read More »
The Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail’s new book of nonfiction, “The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq,” tells one aspect of this story: the kidnapping and enslavement of Yazidi women by Daesh. More specifically, The Beekeeper is about one man’s efforts to rescue these women through a network that he set up himself.
“We made room in our day for every star”: Dunya Mikhail’s “The Beekeeper” Read More »
The Land Between Two Rivers calls to mind James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” in that both books were written by “amateurs”—both Sleigh and Agee are/were first and foremost literary writers, yet their books are works of journalism.
Horizontal Knowledge: Tom Sleigh’s “The Land Between Two Rivers” Read More »
One might argue that blackface performances of the thirties and forties (and earlier) are so far in the past and such a product of their time as to be beyond judgment, but I’d disagree. I’d rather assessments of artists be made with knowledge of their warts and all.
Fred Astaire and the Blackface Talking Read More »
Of Silence and Song doesn’t just reward close, attentive reading. In fact, it demands it. Of Silence and Song is a highly lyric book, advancing a series of impressions rather than the march of a central, tightly reasoned argument.
Required Reading: Dan Beachy-Quick’s “Of Silence and Song” Read More »
Confessional poetry—particularly work that deals with the end of a relationship—is exceptionally tricky to pull off without coming across as navel-gazing and self-centered. Edith, however, is a remarkable work of pathos, using the inward gaze to illuminate both the self and everything around that self.
A Bird on Fire, Stuffed Inside Another Normal-Looking Bird: Meg Freitag’s “Edith” Read More »
