Something Small and Heavy
This is not a biography, photograph, or method of cloning, not footage, not a transcription—in short: this is not faithful.
Posts by tag
fathers and sons
101 posts
The Emigrants
Can we trust Sebald’s words? It doesn’t matter. The fragmented motifs, repeated images, are scattered throughout the texts and sweep you along to a conclusion, at which there magically appears…
Kafka’s Father
Franz Kafka’s letters reveal how the author’s father impacted his writing and his life, and a relationship fraught with fear. Kafka worried about his father’s “intellectual domination” creating an environment…
Believe Me
Over at NYT Magazine, Etgar Keret slips us an essay on teaching his son the art of forgiveness: The minute we got into the taxi, I had a bad feeling.…
His Helmet Off, Raising It High
This was the most important moment of my life. I know it because after Number One died I started to realize I could kill myself too.
The Rumpus Interview with Edward Hirsch
Dean Rader talks with Edward Hirsch about his new book Gabriel, the pain of losing a child, and the challenges of writing grief.
The Last Poem I Loved: “Let me tell you” by Miller Williams
They don’t usually realize that every line, every word of a poem, is there because the poet consciously chose that word instead of some other one.
Second Chance
Complete strangers often ask me how I got my name. They think this is an acceptable question. But for me, for the longest time, it was like being asked to tell the origin story of a scar.
The Rumpus Interview with Will Chancellor
Debut novelist Will Chancellor talks about successful satire, destroying drafts of A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall to get to the finished version, and the advantages of fiction over competing media.
Poetry and a Son’s Death
Finding a way to grieve for the passing of a child is a complicated matter. Poet Edward Hirsch lost his son in 2011, and has just completed a 76-page elegy…