May 31, 2019
Why American Poets Ought to Translate More Poems
As literary translators go, I am mostly a fraud, and thus beset by a fear that all frauds—from TV psychics to reality TV presidents—share: to be exposed by those who […]
May 29, 2019
Meditations in an Emergency: Ilya Kaminsky, Mad Men, and the Backdrop of War
in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, our great country of money, we (forgive us) lived happily during the war. So ends […]
May 3, 2018
“It’s sexy, filthy, viscous, vicious. It’s religious. It’s archaic”–an interview with Montreux Rotholtz
A mélange of language by turns surreal and objective, with narrative poems intertwined with those more driven by sonics and music, Unmark is Montreux Rotholtz’s first book, and it’s a […]
July 26, 2017
NSFW: On “Hysterical Literature,” Leaves of Grass, and the Sexy Reading Movement
Somewhere in the foggy realm between performance art and porno, on a YouTube channel where a poem drives up page views, a woman reads aloud from a paperback book. She […]
July 5, 2017
A Writer’s Romance with Screens
When I can’t put my finger on what I’m feeling, I want to Shazam it or press Control+F, and then I realize I’m turning into a machine. In Adrienne Rich’s […]
May 3, 2016
“Inundation of Texts”: Poets & Writers on Social Media
I think most poets and writers would agree that social media is both a blessing and a curse. While Facebook, Twitter and other social media brings us together across distances […]
February 23, 2016
Postscript to My Kanye West Posts
I’m a human being. . . I’m an artist, bro . . . —@kanyewest, February 13, 2016 Since I wrote about Kanye’s arrogance, based mainly in interviews and lyrics from […]
February 12, 2016
“If Social Media Wasn’t a Thing”: The Sanctity of Reading Time
A recent This American Life episode offers a glimpse into the social politics surrounding teenage girls’ Instagram use. Of the three teens who lend their voices to this segment, Ira […]
September 30, 2013
The Poetics of Campus Security Alerts
Someone needs to write the book on a new genre of literature gripping the land. It is a short form; its characters are stock; its storylines nearly never begin in […]
July 17, 2013
But There Are Also Unknown Unknowns
Gabriel Roth’s restaurant reviews, written between 2003 and 2006 for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, are as good as any I’ve ever read. They’re the kind of pieces you go […]
December 9, 2012
Short Takes: By the Letter, By the Draft
August Wilson: “Blues is the bedrock of everything I do. All the characters in my plays, their ideas and their attitudes, the stance that they adopt in the world, are […]