Issue 22 | November-December 2012

Why Are There Two Reviews of Wiman’s Mandelstam?

That’s an excellent question. This isn’t the first time that we’ve covered a title more than once — Ben Mazer’s Poems has made several appearances, as we’ve become a sort…

Wiman’s Mandelstam (and Mine)

One evening about thirty five years ago, I was browsing the poetry shelves of College Hill Bookstore, in Providence, and picked up the Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam, translated by…

Stolen Air, Broken Voice

Osip Emilevich Mandelstam was born in Warsaw, a European Jew, in 1891. A subject of the Russian empire, his family was granted the right to move to St. Petersburg when…

Getting Off and Getting Even

Vagina. It announces itself, a magnum opus on female sexuality. We start, ironically, with the ending. Naomi Wolf’s orgasms, once reliable, have mysteriously gone astray. The cause? A late diagnosis…

Anti-Social Behavior: the Novel

Asked in a 1995 interview about his fascination with Milton, Martin Amis described the loss of innocence in Paradise Lost as “the basic tragic story of our culture.” Milton, Amis…