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Consider: My coming out story has been told, but coming out is constantly changing and shifting and needs retelling, and each telling has value for a particular audience.
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This collection suggests again and again that poets and poetry are conjoined with such places—found on a map and indelibly mapped to the psyche.
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In this book we are taken by all three: language, plot, character.
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Barr is an astonishing image-maker, adept in creating significance through anthimeria.
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Life’s inequities can be cruel, but in the end we are all part of our communities; suffering though we may be, we are not alone.
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I think that the moment we’re living in offers the best opportunity we’ve had in a long time in that a lot of things having to do with identity politics are being talked about in poems.
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But to become a writer I needed at least to learn about my own superstitions. I needed space in the house to sketch with words. I needed to commit heresies. And those acts had to feel pleasurable.
...moreBegone, Wordsworth! The Times‘s Sunday Book Review brought in acclaimed writers James Parker and Francine Prose to answer the question: who should be kicked out of the literary canon? They responded by offering some lovely (or heartbreaking) discussion on Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, and challenging the very idea of a “canon” in the first […]
...moreFor the New Yorker, Joshua Rothman explores why certain writers reach “long-term literary endurance” and others fall into obscurity. What he discovers is that long-term fame often has to do with “regular reinterpretation,” which requires writers to be multi-dimensional and adaptable to various social contexts.
...more(adj.) wandering through or amongst the clouds; moving through air; from the Latin nubes (“cloud”) and vagant (“wandering”), c. 1656. I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and […]
...moreIf you’ve ever felt like reading good literature gives you more comfort and insight than any self-help book ever could, you’re probably onto something. Scientists at the University of Liverpool recently conducted a study indicating that the brain “lights up” bigger and brighter when grappling with Shakespeare and Wordsworth than when taking in ordinary prose. […]
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