Engine Empire by Cathy Park Hong
There remain a few shops, labels, and presses in the United States that embody DIY artistic independence in the best way, combining the intensity and existential tenacity of hardcore punk…
Blogs
5694 posts
The Last Poem I Loved: “Under the Maud Moon” by Galway Kinnell
A round- cheeked girlchild comes awake in her crib. The green swaddlings tear open I first encountered the last poem I loved, Galway Kinnell’s “Under the Maud Moon,” eleven summers…
A Soldier’s Handbook
The New York Review of Books covers the recently published guidebook given to American soldiers before heading to Vietnam: “Most American soldiers landing in Vietnam in the 1960s were handed a ninety-three-page…
The Rumpus Interview with Cynthia Cruz
Her poems were spare, fierce, dark little packages that managed to feel both mystical—almost like fairytales—and contemporary with their references to drugs and Greyhound stations.
Lit-Link Round-up
Navigating the world of literary agents, at The Millions. Some good stuff here, except that the longshot theory of “it’s all who you know” isn’t really true. I got my…
The Last Poem I Loved: “The Bells” by Adam Zagajewski
My maternal grandparents emigrated from Poland in 1924 after experiencing the horrors of World War I. They arrived here with pockets full of hopes and dreams and little else. I…
Ring of Bone: Collected Poems by Lew Welch
Lew Welch has been dead now for 40 years, just about as long as his total time on earth. He disappeared on May 23, 1971, walked out of poet and…
Arguing Against Perennial Busyness
A mistake is being made by our society, according to Ed Smith at the New Statesman, that those in the workforce are expected to be constantly busy. Workers spend a majority…
Alex Gallo-Brown: The Last Book I Loved, Magic Hours
Magic Hours, Tom Bissell’s recent collection of non-fiction, surveys his magazine writing over the last decade or so. It is a genre, he informs us in the Author’s Note, he…
Melding Web Content and Advertising
Choire Sicha writes about the visual evolution of the internet over at The Awl. Sicha discusses the fact that advertisements are being woven into the content of websites, such as promoted…
Either Way I’m Celebrating by Sommer Browning
Sommer Browning’s Either Way I’m Celebrating shows effervescence, delight in language, and whimsy, even as it hides more introspective and severe undertones. Taking elements of surrealism from the Ashbery branch…
Dogs of Brooklyn by Susie DeFord
When poets decide to collect what they consider to be some of their best work into a manuscript, there are seemingly thousands of choices to make. Should all the poems…