February 22, 2018
Flâneur/Flâneuse: The Werewolf Roaming the Social Wilderness
According to its dictionary definition, a flâneur is little more than a loiterer, but to thinkers such as Walter Benjamin and Charles Baudelaire this figure plays the role of a […]
February 14, 2018
On Being an “Annoying Poet Girl” and “Art Monster”
As you might imagine, there was a comical symmetry when I, an often irritating female poet, watched the movie Adult World about . . . an often irritating female poet. […]
February 7, 2018
On Writing Naked, Bloody, in Exile
Write naked. That means to write what you would never say. Write in blood. As if ink is so precious you can’t waste it. Write in exile, as if you […]
January 29, 2018
An Interview with Rachel Lyon
In Self-Portrait With Boy, Rachel Lyon has written a powerful debut novel. Self-Portrait examines the aftermath of the moment Lu Rile takes a photograph that inadvertently captures a boy’s fatal […]
January 24, 2018
Dispatches From the World of Cuban Poetry
Culled from countless books, magazines, and anthologies, the January/February KR issue pays special tribute to the work of Cuban Generation Zero, or Generación Cero, poets, born post-1970 and publishing post-2000. […]
January 17, 2018
An Interview with Naima Coster
Naima Coster’s debut novel, Halsey Street, examines critical issues such as gender, gentrification, anger, and art making. Recently Coster wrote a thoughtful, important essay on the significance of having a […]
January 11, 2018
The Little Mermaid and the Little Girl Writer Part Two
While Ariel barters her art for romance, Ursula remains witchy and creative. As she sings her story-song in the film, she conjures images of what she’s describing above her cauldron […]
January 5, 2018
The Little Mermaid and the Little Girl Writer Part One
I will never forget sitting in the front row of that movie theater watching The Little Mermaid, wide-eyed, wondering what happened to that discarded mermaid tail. Did the witch store […]
January 3, 2018
Thinking of Wallace Stevens in Winter
A snowy morning seems the perfect time to revisit two Wallace Stevens winter-snow-philosophy poems that have lived inside me since I first read them years ago, “Thirteen Ways of Looking […]
December 22, 2017
Banned Words and Erasure Poetry
Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, among many others, has called the Trump administration’s forbidding the CDC’s use of certain words and terms (transgender, diversity, fetus, vulnerable, entitlement, evidence-based, and science-based) Orwellian, in reference to George Orwell’s dystopian novel […]
December 13, 2017
Power and Powerlessness in Kristen Roupenian’s Cat Person
In addition to how Kristen Roupenian’s “Cat Person” (the New Yorker short story that has recently gone viral) resonates with the #MeToo movement, what struck me about it was the nuance of […]
December 11, 2017
The Influence of Zora Neale Hurston’s Films on Beyoncé’s Lemonade
I re-watched Lemonade last night. From the moment Beyoncé’s “Visual Album” Lemonade exploded onto the aesthetic scene, everyone has been scrambling to trace its formidable roots. In mapping out Lemonade’s visual […]