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, […]
September 25, 2018
Poetry for People Who Hate Poetry – September
“I, too, dislike it.” Marianne Moore, “Poetry” But you don’t hate it. At least that’s what I hope you’ll discover as you read this column. I don’t want to convince […]
January 30, 2017
On Carrying Each Other & Cosmic Debt
The world is gone, I must carry you. —Paul Celan If my father was not the kind of person he is, it would be a touchy subject. It bears […]
January 1, 2014
Out with the Auld
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Of course not, says experience, and conscience, and (answering his own question) Robert Burns. So we raise our cups o’ […]
August 27, 2010
Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival
First, let’s clear our throats. Willie Perdomo That was Willie Perdomo at last week’s Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival. (I took all of these videos with my sweetie’s new […]
July 31, 2010
Cephalopod Appreciation
The lovely and inimitable Betsey Brock recently demonstrated how a video of a boy seeing lobsters for the first time lets us witness firsthand a human experiencing the Sublime. Edmund […]
May 4, 2010
Altered States
Ohio. I’m sitting inside an I-80 rest stop, not far from Kent. A headline in this morning’s USA Today: “A Teachable Moment at Kent State, 40 Years Later.” Does “teachable […]
April 8, 2010
Nothing Impersonal
My friend Sam and I took a ramble through a re-winterized park. A Your lost purse is in the Conservatory gift shop note was frosted onto a bench in elm […]
December 15, 2009
Desecrating a literary grave
Recently, I’ve been spending more time than usual scanning bookshelves for volumes where juicy adjectival promises, like ‘Complete,’ or the alluring evidence of ‘Letters’ figure into the title and thus […]
May 20, 2009
Six First-Book Excerpts, with Jarrell Brackets
In his essay “Some Lines from Whitman,” Randall Jarrell writes, To show Whitman for what he is one does not need to praise or explain or argue, one needs simply […]