October 14, 2015
The Literal Underground: On Bernie’s Hip Hop Night
In Columbus, our underground hip hop night was literally underground. Bernie’s Distillery sat below North High Street, accessible through a black staircase that carried you down 10 feet, past a […]
October 14, 2015
Elitism and American Poetry
The question of “the audience of poetry” is one that vexes poets and critics endlessly in our country. There are, on this as on so many other issues, two camps, […]
June 12, 2015
The Low Pass Theory, Part 2
Beyond the dense childhood memories of musical sound sieved through cinder block, another archetypal memory carried by a number of hip hop producers and artists—including KRS-ONE, the RZA, as well […]
March 12, 2015
How to Write Human: Outkast’s Art of Storytellin’
Literature is at its best when it humanizes its characters and, by extension, its readers. The poetry of the duo Outkast, comprised of Big Boi and Andre 3000, peels back the […]
March 3, 2015
Night Thoughts (I)
Dickinson’s dashes and erratic capitalizations seem unusual or eccentric only to those who are unfamiliar with 19th century letter-writing. Byron’s letters, for example, are punctuated entirely in Dickinsonese, and similarly […]
December 10, 2014
Earl Sweatshirt’s Bookshelf, and Time
Bookshelves do funny things to time. In a recent clip, rapper Earl Sweatshirt lets FADER TV tour his Hollywood bachelor pad. In a Cribs send-up, he guides the camera through […]