December 14, 2011
What’s in a Name?
The controversy continues regarding The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, edited by Rita Dove. The barest outline of the issue is as follows: Helen Vendler, in the New York […]
December 2, 2011
Technophilia or Technopornography: the PDA in the Performance Space
Earlier this week, I caught a discussion thread that began with Daniel Nester’s post on We Who Are About to Die execrating the reading of texts from iPhones (and, one […]
November 30, 2011
Thinking (about art and poetry), Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow is, for my money, one of maybe a dozen books released this year that someone could compellingly argue will be read in 50 years. […]
November 29, 2011
Mix Tape: Feeling Thankful For…
Poems, when they come, and for Ruth Stone, who once said, “Never keep a poem waiting; it might be a really good one, and if you don’t get it down […]
November 26, 2011
Family Bibles
On the family bookshelves now are hundreds of books—mostly my mom’s history texts (she taught history in high school for twenty years and then another ten in community colleges), a […]
November 18, 2011
The Breath Within Our Breath (On Poetry Readings)
Yesterday, as usual, my Facebook newsfeed was crowned with the day’s birthday exchanges and Facebook’s reminders to add my wishes to the walls of three or four friends. But just […]
September 19, 2011
Short Takes: Mere Anarchy is Loosed (Again)
The Poets & Writers 2012 MFA Rankings have–repeatedly, it seems–managed to cause quite a ruckus. Now: one Columbia grad is upset that his alma mater’s place on the list has […]
September 13, 2011
Short Takes: Glossophobia
Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, to Raymond Chandler in 1958: “I don’t know if you do, but I find it extremely difficult to write about villains. Villains are […]
September 6, 2011
Short Takes: Crying and Laughing, or Both
A kind of poetic justice, in which an Ottawa prosecutor’s rhyme helped to convict an impaired driver in court. Plugged into Google Correlate (a tool which lets you free-draw graph […]
September 3, 2011
Wunderkammer: Padgett Powell’s Edisto
A wunderkammer is a curiosity cabinet; it means “wonder chamber” in German. In these posts, I’ll assemble trivia and a handful of oddities that evoke the spirit of a particular […]
August 29, 2011
Short Takes: An Irrational Beauty
John Burnside: “I always feel saddened by intelligent people who say, this can’t be true because it doesn’t work in terms of rationality. What does? Inspiration? Art? Romantic love? Having […]
August 12, 2011
We’re All Museums: A Conversation with John Gallaher, pt 2 (fin)
John Gallaher’s lots of things–a ferociously smart guy, a very good poet [three books of his own and a fourth, the very recent and very good collab with KR’s own […]