March 15, 2019
In Defense of Walter Scott, Part 2
Back in December, I wrote a post about Walter Scott in which I analyzed his 1818 novel The Antiquary and argued that the work demonstrated that Scott was anything but […]
March 14, 2019
The Art of Attending to Our Surroundings: Self-Portrait with Dogwood by Christopher Merrill
Christopher Merrill has published six collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; many edited volumes and […]
March 13, 2019
“Dark comedy, violence, and haunted irony”: A Conversation with Christina Milletti
Christina Milletti’s novel Choke Box: a Fem-Noir won the Juniper Prize for Fiction and is forthcoming from University of Massachusetts Press in March 2019. Her fiction, articles, and reviews have […]
March 12, 2019
Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King
In Idylls of the King, Alfred, Lord Tennyson strives to bring the vitality of life to the legend of King Arthur. He seeks to convey a story so ancient it has […]
March 9, 2019
Review: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra
PATANJALI’S YOGA SUTRA. Translated from the Sanskrit with an Introduction and Commentary by Shyam Ranganathan. Penguin Classics India, 2008. 319 pages. During a recent visit to the Jaipur Literary […]
March 8, 2019
Poetry for People Who Hate Poetry – March
“Rhymes can make sense of the world in a way that regular speech can’t.” Hip hop mogul Jay-Z (Sean Carter) says it better than I can. It’s no coincidence that […]
March 5, 2019
Gertrude Stein’s “Composition as Explanation”
The title of Gertrude Stein’s essay, “Composition as Explanation,” ostensibly contradicts her literary scheme of raising form to the level of content. The name seems to imply that this piece […]
March 5, 2019
On Novels that Span a Lifetime
There’s a famous theory (attributed to Aristotle, though in reality the result of misinterpretations of his work made by Renaissance humanists) that a good tragedy should follow the three unities, […]
February 28, 2019
“At the mercy of language”: A Conversation with Elizabeth A.I. Powell
Elizabeth A.I. Powell is the author of The Republic of Self, a New Issue First Book Prize winner, selected by C.K. Williams. Her second book of poems, Willy Loman’s Reckless […]
February 27, 2019
In Defense of On the Road
Two years ago, I was sitting in a Starbucks and reading On the Road (aware, of course, of the irony of reading something with such an anti-consumerist ethos in such […]
February 25, 2019
“To balance the personal and the political”: A Conversation with Victoria Chang
Victoria Chang’s new book of poems, OBIT, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Barbie Chang, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2017. The Boss (McSweeney’s, 2013) won a PEN Center USA Literary Award and a […]
February 20, 2019
Poet to Poet Interview: Rajiv Mohabir and Craig Santos Perez
Rajiv Mohabir is the author of The Cowherd’s Son (Tupelo Press, 2017, winner of the 2015 Kundiman Prize) and The Taxidermist’s Cut (Four Way Books, 2016, winner of the Four […]