On Verse
Sounding Zurita
Raúl Zurita and Anna Deeny read together beginning at 30 min. Music, poetry, and performance moored my childhood. I was trained as a classical pianist and worked for some time…
Disruption and Openings: Ian Ganassi’s Mean Numbers
Before I knew him as a poet, I knew Ian Ganassi as the percussionist who accompanied my parents’ dance classes: the sound of Ian’s drumming is inextricable from the sound…
Greater Boston Writers Resist
Jan 16, 2017 | Hundreds of Greater Boston residents convened at the Boston Public Library yesterday for a demonstration of shared commitment to the rights and values essential to a democracy….
The Secret History of our Enemies: Balaban’s Translations of Vietnamese Poetry
Decades ago, when I first read All Quiet on the Western Front, I copied this sentence into my journal: “A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies;…
Women Writing in 21st Century Brazil: Experimentation and Narratives of Self
There were days when Dita hid all the papers (Ruth Ducaso/Luciany Aparecida). Brief considerations on writing by contemporary women authors I start this essay with the opening words of…
The Moscow Calendar’s Going Islamic; or, The Soviet Empire in Brodsky’s Poetry
Hamid Ismailov is an Uzbek writer whose works are banned in Uzbekistan. He has lived in the United Kingdom since 1994. Several of his Russian-language novels have appeared in English…
Conversations: Rion Amilcar Scott and Bro. Yao
Rion Amilcar Scott I’ve attempted many times to render as fiction my first conversation with Hoke Glover III (or Bro. Yao as many know him). Such a scene has always…
Harold Bloom on Alvin Feinman’s Self-limiting Transcendence
I first met Alvin Feinman in September 1951, the day before I encountered another remarkable young man who also became a life-long friend, Angus Fletcher. Alvin was twenty-two, a year…
It Sang Itself Utterly Away: the Presence of the Poet
Lately, I’ve been obsessed with memory. Maybe I shouldn’t say lately, because I’ve always been obsessed with memory—mostly my own memories. One second I am brushing my teeth and the…