September 22, 2015
And Then I Burst Into Tears
Yes, it’s gourd season—but for those of us who teach, it’s also syllabus season and course-packet season. I’ve joked before that I expect to be buried with my course packets; […]
February 23, 2014
Birds and Brush Strokes
As readers, we have certain lines (or stanzas, or paragraphs) that we can’t get out of our heads. Maybe it’s just a phrase: Dickinson’s “Buccaneers of Buzz,” Larkin’s “not untrue […]
December 16, 2013
Smacko, Redux
In Traveling Sprinkler, Nicholson Baker’s sort-of sequel to The Anthologist, poet Paul Chowder turns his attention to drone attacks, and songwriting, and ex-girlfriend wooing. He’s nearly “Fifty Fucking Five,” the […]
July 15, 2013
Confessions of a Book Killer
Last Wednesday, I killed a book. I doubt anyone will miss it–Microphotography for Libraries: Papers presented to the Microphotography Symposium at the 1936 Conference of the American Library Association. Bound […]