March 25, 2019
On A TALE OF FOUR DERVISHES by Mir Amman
Amman, Mir. A Tale of Four Dervishes. Translated from the Urdu with an Introduction by Mohammed Zakir. Penguin Classics (India), 1994. 158 pages. Continuing my exploration of Penguin India’s […]
March 20, 2019
Free Villanelle Against White Supremacists Co-opting Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’
Lines taken out of context can make darkness burn For those who want to burn the world, but darkness Is their slow burn, white lies their eruption. And when leaflets […]
March 20, 2019
Reclaiming the Intellectual Agency of Women: Marianne Moore & Jamesian Psychology
An Argument for Moore as Philosopher Critics and readers alike know Marianne Moore as a poet whose work was not strictly limited to literary influences.[1] Throughout her body of work, […]
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 18, 2019
Making the Familiar Strange: A Conversation With Wendy Chin-Tanner
Wendy Chin-Tanner has published two poetry books with Sibling Rivalry Press, Turn (2014), which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Awards, and Anyone Will Tell You (April 2019). She […]
March 17, 2019
On The Selected Poetry of Amir Khusrau
In the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amir Khusrau. Translated by Paul E. Losensky and Sunil Sharma Penguin Classics India, 2011. 164 pages. The Introduction to this […]
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
The Pope, the Imam, and Religious Pluralism
When I was fourteen, growing up in southern Indiana in the wake of the sixties, and fired by a desire for spiritual pursuits, I took lessons in Transcendental Meditation. It […]