The Cantos by Ezra Pound, A Critical Appraisal

I: The Mount Everest of Modernism “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” – Sir Edmund Hillary The Cantos.  Ezra Pound.  The very mention of those names send shudders down even the most well-read literary snob.  T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” seems like a small indentation in comparison.  The only work with comparable difficulty and lit crit caché is Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.  Reading these works carries along serious bragging rights.  “I saw the new Terrance and Philip movie.  Now who wants to touch me?” Eric Cartman said in the South Park movie. As a reader … Continue reading The Cantos by Ezra Pound, A Critical Appraisal

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FICTION *Portrait of a Lady by Henry James *The Judging Eye by R. Scott Bakker *The Cantos by Ezra Pound NON-FICTION *Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by John Chancellor *Rising Up and Rising Down (7-Volume Set) by William T. Vollmann Continue reading Books I’m reading

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Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa

“The jawbone of an ass. A shank/braided with shark teeth. A garrote.” So begins Yusef Komunyakaa’s new book of poems, simply called Warhorses. The slim volume confronts uncomfortable topics like wars, death, and atrocity. Written in a stripped-down primal language, it subverts the violence of its subject matter. Komunyakaa’s mastery and precision has been rewarded with a Pulitzer Prize for his earlier volume, Neon Vernacular (1994). To read the entire review, click here. Continue reading Warhorses by Yusef Komunyakaa

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