Posts by author
Barbara Berman
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“What Is Amazing” by Heather Christle
What Is Amazing by Heather Christle is another illustration of my frustration with the word “critic,” why I think “appreciator” is a closer approximation and why I’m still open to one-word suggestions. Christle was born in 1980 and has two…
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Fragile Acts by Allan Peterson
The cover of Allan Peterson’s Fragile Acts, in print and as eBook, is as visually compelling as the cover of Rebecca Lindenberg’s Love, An Index, the first poetry selection in McSweeney’s new series. The cloth binding of Fragile Acts is…
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Troy, Unincorporated by Francesca Abbate
The good news about Troy, Unincorporated by Francesca Abbate, is that though it is a re-imagination of Chaucer’s “Troilus and Criseyde” from his Canterbury Tales, you don’t have to have been an English major or a Chaucer lover to appreciate…
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Citizen by Aaron Shurin
Aaron Shurin writes piercingly lovely poetry that ‘s multidimensional and insists on being read aloud, though its eloquence is equally powerful on the page without sound…
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Watchword by Pura López Colomé
There is spiritual alchemy at work here, making one wish this piece, and many others, could be chanted by choruses taking turns, in both languages, with an audience not responding audibly between poems.
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The Poems of Jesus Christ, by Willis Barnstone
Born in 1927, Willis Barnstone is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Indiana University and an admired translator . His rendering of The Poems of St John of the Cross is rightly revered by believers, non believers, scholars and…
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The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry
It is clear from Dove’s introduction to the anthology, and from her selections, that she just wanted an engaging, informative, high -quality collection. She succeeded.
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The Whole Vortex of Home
[Peter] Gizzi’s particular gift is to posit that shifting location where senses meet the terrible and the sublime, where political portent or its brittle actualities announce themselves in various configurations.
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They Sing Wild Songs In New Keys
Marge Piercy’s unflinching clarity of vision continues to be the kind of sturdy example so vital to literature. She has long been teaching and in the public arena, on the humane side of almost every contemporary issue.
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These Veins of Leaf, Hand, Storm and Stream
Ideally, critics and teachers are humbled by their vocations and the artistry the vocations expose them to, encouraging effort to stay fresh , emotionally resonant and intellectually worthwhile. Say yes to all of the above when the subject is Di…
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The Force That Drives All Flesh
Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls is a case study for how to observe, recall and (possibly) create from whole cloth with clarity that never becomes brittle.
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I’m Nothing If Not Polite
Notes From Irrelevance is a long weave of sentence shimmers with influences of someone who has read and absorbed a rich range, from classics to the most experimental, making each phrasing kinetic with questions about the way he has experienced…