Gretchen E. Henderson is the author of four books, most recently Ugliness: A Cultural History (Reaktion Books of London/University of Chicago Press, 2015). She teaches at Georgetown University and was the 2015–16 Hodson Trust–JCB Fellow at Brown University and Washington College. This essay is part of her longer work in progress titled Philosophy of Stones: A Lyric Archaeology.
Nature's Nature
May/June 2017
A Philosophy of Stones
Look for a stone. This stone could be bedrock or sandy landfill that liquefies in quakes. It could be carved limestone stacked into disintegrating columns at Delphi, or granite walls […]
Nonfiction
Summer 2010
The Many Faces of Bea
There are hundreds of her. Here: she poses in shimmering gold, with burnished curls and closed eyes.1 In another portrait, her gaze fades behind lavender veils. Ghostlike, she rematerializes black […]
Fall 2009
Exhibit G; Exhibit Z
Exhibit G Flares seed rains. Fires, floods. More fires and floods—no matter, it seems. Seasonal cycles persist, as bodies swarm at ocean’s edge. Irrigating ducts make this arid basin bloom. […]