Are Michael Bay’s Transformers movies and the trend of using drones for assassination part of the same moral sickness? Continue reading Democracy is not for the People, by Josef Kaplan @thethepoetryblog
This week in the CCLaP series “On Being Human,” Karl Wolff analyses Samuel Beckett’s groundbreaking “Trilogy,” where the famed avant-garde writer sought the essence of what it is to be human by stripping away the setting, plot, and characters of three small novels in a row. Continue reading CCLaP Fridays: On Being Human: The Trilogy, by Samuel Beckett
A Spy in the Ruins by Christopher Bernard constructs a postapocalyptic anti-narrative replete with verbal richness, political aggression, and erotic tenderness. Continue reading Critical Appraisals: A Spy in the Ruins, by Christopher Bernard
My essay on a Jack Gilbert poem is over on thethepoetryblog. Click the link to go to the essay. Continue reading An essay on a Jack Gilbert poem @ thethepoetryblog
I’m published!!! My short piece, “The Anarcho-Libertine Manifesto, 2nd Iteration” (page 31) has been published by Paraphilia Magazine. In a nutshell, I call for the arts to be dangerous again and to not be afraid to use lush and opulent language. Continue reading Published!!! Read my manifesto in the pages of Paraphilia Magazine
A Cultural History of the Chinese Language by Sharron Gu attempts to provide a means for non-specialists to approach Chinese, not from the technical and scientific discipline of linguistics, but from the discipline of literary history. Continue reading A Cultural History of the Chinese Language, by Sharron Gu
Roberto Bolaño’s novel The Savage Detectives chronicled a literary movement named “the Visceral Realists.” Crow: from the Life and Songs of the Crow by Ted Hughes offers the reader a kind of visceral realism. The poetry cycle recounts the life and times of Crow, a folkloric character, comedian and trickster. The collection ranges across various types of poems: fairy tales, lullabies, legends, comedic shtick, and parody. Like the crows one sees everyday, Crow scrabbles in waste, carrion, and garbage. He is a scavenger, appropriating things, a collector of junk. The poem titles bear this out, “Oedipus Crow,” “Crow Tyrannosaurus,” and … Continue reading Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow, by Ted Hughes
These days memoirs are a dime a dozen, glutting the market with tales of the self-absorbed. Fortunately, Chad Faries stands out in this crowded field with his unique tale of childhood in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Drive Me Out of My Mind: 24 Houses in 10 Years, a Memoir, follows Chad’s childhood from roughly 1971 to 1980. Chad’s singularly strange upbringing and poetic sensibility create a memoir unlike any other. Most memoirs focus on bourgeois nuclear families and the travails of growing up middle-class in the suburbs. In childhood, Chad discerned the differences of his family and “families on TV.” Chad’s … Continue reading Drive Me Out of My Mind, by Chad Faries
Genealogy Anselm Berrigan comes from an esteemed family. The son of poet Ted Berrigan and poet Alice Notley, his brother is the poet and songwriter Edmund Berrigan. Anselm’s wife Karen Weiser also works as a poet. Notes from Irrelevance shows that Anselm didn’t get his book deal by trading on his father’s name. (America, despite its populist and egalitarian posturing, has a yen for dynasties and nepotism. See: the Presidency, Ford Motor Company, etc.) Content Notes from Irrelevance could easily bear the subtitle, “One man’s search for meaning in the second decade of the 21st century.” Throughout the short … Continue reading Notes from Irrelevance, by Anselm Berrigan
Food is one of the essential requirements for existence. One cannot go about one’s daily business without caloric intake. However, beyond the needs food fulfils, one takes pleasure in eating. That is why people read restaurant reviews or watch No Reservations. Food also represents a mirror of a specific place, culture, and personality. Why a book entitled Fasting for Ramadan has recipes in the back also requires explanation. Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice by Kazim Ali is a stunning literary jewel. An extended meditation on the Muslim practice of fasting during the month of Ramadan has appeal … Continue reading Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice, by Kazim Ali
The Driftless Area Review 