On Frank Bidart: Fastening the Voice to the Page, essays edited by Liam...
The vexing question raised by Frank Bidart’s poetry: Is the language we speak to each other, in negotiating our days, just a stream of euphemisms? Is the language of poetry any better?read more
View ArticleColtrane, a biography by Ben Ratliff (Farrar Straus Giroux)
In his autobiography Straight Life, Art Pepper talked about how deeply he was influenced by John Coltrane – so much so that when he came out of prison in 1964 without his alto horns, he acquired a...
View ArticleSleeping With Houdini, prose poems by Nin Andrews (BOA Editions Ltd)
Nin Andrews writes entertaining, personality-driven prose poems pretending to tell the candid truth about their subjects, finally. The work isn’t as “scandalous” and “outrageous” as one of her blurbers...
View ArticleI’ve Heard the Vultures Singing, essays by Lucia Perillo (Trinity University...
In “From the Bardo Zone,” Lucia Perillo writes about visiting a creek where salmon come to spawn and die. “Don’t get me wrong; I’m grateful for the people who push me out when I bog down in the mud,”...
View ArticleThe Bad Girl, a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa (Farrar Straus Giroux)
In The Bad Girl, Ricardo Somocurcio tells the story of his lifelong love for Lily the Chilean girl, Comrade Arlette, Madame Robert Arnoux, Mrs. David Richardson, Kuriko, Otilita, and his wife Mrs....
View ArticleThe Art of the American Snapshot: 1888-1978, by Sarah Greenough and Diane...
On July 9, 1896, the New York Times ran a story alleging that the mayor of Long Island City was engaged in illicit activities. To provide evidence, the paper ran some photos, described by journalist...
View ArticleA View of the Ocean, a memoir by Jan de Hartog (Pantheon)
In The Art of Time in Memoir, Sven Birkerts names three approaches to discovering “a dramatic explanatory narrative” in memoir: “For some the event-based story of the past may be paramount … for others...
View ArticleLost Paradise, a novel by Cees Nooteboom, translated by Susan Massotty (Grove...
First published in 2004 as Paradijs Verloren, Lost Paradise completes the second half of an orbit achieved by its mirrored opposite, Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” which is quoted or mentioned here and...
View ArticleWhite Towers by Paul Hirshorn & Steven Izenour (The MIT Press)
“I loved the taste of those burgers. There was something about the combination of the grilled hamburger meat, chopped unions and the pickle.read more
View ArticleFrank Sinatra: The Man, The Music, The Legend, essays edited by Jeanne Fuchs...
I was in Milan on business on May 14, 1998, the day Frank Sinatra died at age 82. The story topped the national news broadcast. Visiting Germany, President Clinton responded to a reporter’s question...
View ArticleTwenty Poets Name Some New Favorites to Celebrate National Poetry Month
To celebrate National Poetry Month, I asked some friends to recommend a new or recent poetry title for the site’s readership. Many thanks to everyone for naming some favorites. RS***Where X Marks the...
View ArticlePoet’s Bookshelf II (Barnwood Press), The Music Lover’s Anthology (Persea...
Poets Bookshelf II: Contemporary Poets on Books That Shaped Their Art, edited by Peter Davis and Tom Koontz (Barnwood Press)read more
View ArticleThe Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow...
My business partner knows a man who made a pre-season $150 bet that the New England Patriots would go undefeated right through the Superbowl. I believe the odds were 40,000 to 1. The Pats won every...
View Articleon Peace, a novel by Richard Bausch (Knopf)
My father served in the Army Air Force as a B-17 ball-turret gunner, flying out of the airbase at Foggia, Italy, 50 miles northeast of Naples. The city had been taken by the Allies after the landing at...
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