First, Julie Marie Wade reviews the “solar system” of Kimberly Burwick’s poetry collection, Good Night Brother. The son—or “sun”—in the title “burns everyone and everything it touches.” He/it “has gone the way of the supernova.” This lovable, yet hard-to-love character seduces the reader with the promise of the ineffable.
Then, in the Saturday Interview, blogger and self-described feminist Noah Berlatsky delves into his work as editor of the culture site The Hooded Utilitarian, and explains his motivations for producing works of comics scholarship like his forthcoming book, Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics. For Berlatsky, popular writing and academia often overlap in compelling ways.
Finally, in the Sunday Essay, Karen Shimmin learns from babysitting how important it is to feel loved, and how that love can come from unexpected places. While going through a difficult breakup, she notices the baby’s smile, and “since he couldn’t speak, I could make that half-smile about me.” When she accidentally crashes her boyfriend’s car, Shimmin stumbles into a “giant, clichéd metaphor for our failed relationship.”
