May 31, 2019
Why American Poets Ought to Translate More Poems
As literary translators go, I am mostly a fraud, and thus beset by a fear that all frauds—from TV psychics to reality TV presidents—share: to be exposed by those who […]
May 29, 2019
“THE OLD ENCHANTMENT HOLDS”: VOICE, ALTERITY, AND THE IMAGE IN H.D.’S HELEN IN EGYPT
Introduction Generally speaking, it is not commonplace among critics of Helen in Egypt to describe H.D. as lacking agency over her craft. The work seems, at first glance, even more […]
May 22, 2019
Close-Reading the Rhythm of a Thomas Pynchon Sentence
If you’ve read enough of my blog posts, you’ll likely realize that I have an abiding interest in the rhythm of sentences. In a blog post on first lines, I […]
April 30, 2019
“Beyond the self”: A Conversation with Deborah Landau
Deborah Landau’s fourth book of poems, Soft Targets, is out this spring. Her previous collections are The Uses of the Body and The Last Usable Hour, both Lannan Literary Selections from Copper Canyon […]
April 29, 2019
Public by Varying Degrees: Understanding Audience in Relation to Emily Dickinson’s Artistic Subject
Introduction Emily Dickinson’s attitude toward the literary marketplace has been widely contested by critics, who portray her as both shy poetess and self-aware genius in search of literary immortality. Given […]
April 28, 2019
“An artistic harmonious balance between the reader’s mind and the author’s mind”: Vladimir Nabokov’s Literary Criticism as a Performance of Reading Practices
Introduction All too often, readers approach a writer’s forays into literary criticism as a source of insight about that individual’s tastes, aesthetic predispositions, and theoretical assumptions about literature. This type […]
April 25, 2019
Publisher Spotlight: Leland Cheuk of 7.13 Books
A MacDowell Colony and Hawthornden Castle Fellow, Leland Cheuk is the author of three books, most recently, NO GOOD VERY BAD ASIAN, forthcoming from C&R Press in September 2019. His […]
April 13, 2019
Review: Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Poems
Tagore, Rabindranath. Selected Poems. Translated by William Radice. Penguin Modern Classics (India), 208 pages. Some writers write different things the same way over and over again. All of Emily […]
April 5, 2019
On Mixed Metaphors in Gorgani’s Vis and Ramin
To almost all writers today, the term “mixed metaphor” has only negative connotations, referring to a classic type of bad and thoughtless writing, when a writer without realizing it employs […]
March 19, 2019
How We Spend Our Days
“Georgia O’Keeffe has never allowed her life to be one thing and her painting another.” –Frances O’Brien, friend of the artist, 1927 That quote, which was emblazoned on the wall […]
March 4, 2019
‘All life is the domain of poetry’: A Conversation with Terese Svoboda
A Guggenheim fellow, Terese Svoboda is the author of 18 books. She has won the Bobst Prize in fiction, the Iowa Prize for poetry, an NEH grant for translation, the […]
December 26, 2018
Teaching About Designer Babies/Designing Humans (and the story of American Eugenics)
When I was asking around about teaching methods or topics that excited students, I was particularly intrigued to hear about Dr. Phyllis van Slyck’s course, “Designer Babies/Designing Humans (and the story of […]