31 YEARS OF THE ARTIST’S VOICE
LITERATURE
BREAKOUT VOICES FROM THE INSIDE
by Nov 13, 2009
An installment of WNYC’s signature series The NEXT New York Conversation, Pen America’s Breakout: Voices From The Inside began with a brief introduction about Pen’s Prison Writing Program.
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TEN MORE YEARS
by Nov 10, 2009
The independent used bookstore Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers on Bedford between N.4th and N.5th, celebrates its 10th anniversary.
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HOLLY GODDARD JONES: MORE THAN GIRL TROUBLE
by Nov 09, 2009
While the words girl trouble may conjure up images of teenaged girls talking on the phone about boys, please read further…
LITERATURE
FADY JOUDAH: TRANSLATING DARWISH
by Nov 09, 2009
Houston, Texas doctor and poet Fady Joudah translated Darwish’s If I Were Another and The Butterfly’s Burden, which won a TLS Translation Prize (the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize) for Arabic Literary Translation from the Society of Authors in the UK.
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LIVE FROM THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY: IS REALITY OVERRATED? A DISCUSSION BETWEEN ETGAR KERET AND IRA GLASS
by Nov 04, 2009
Before the discussion between the acclaimed Israeli writer and filmmaker, Etgar Keret and Ira Glass, the host of This American Life, a short video of a conversation between the Portuguese writer, Antonio Lobo Antunes and Paul Holdengraber, the Director of the NYPL’s Public Programs played on a screen to the left of the stage. Comprised of sketches by Flash Rosenberg, the NYPL’s artist in residence, completed during, and inspired by Antunes and Holdengraber’s conversation, the video offered a glimpse into the mind of an established writer. “Every good book,” Antunes declared in one clip. “Is a victory over death.”
LITERATURE
THINK BACK PILGRIM: RICK SNYDER'S ESCAPE FROM COMBRAY
by Nov 03, 2009
Before we even crack its cover, Rick Snyder’s first full-length, Escape from Combray, promises action. As the title references the hometown of Proust’s memorable, nameless front man, so does it hint at themes of origin and transience.
LITERATURE
RACHEL ZUCKER: POETRY DOULA
by Nov 02, 2009
Thumbing through the pages of my newly acquired review copies I came across the press release for Rachel Zucker’s latest book Museum of Accidents (Wave Books October 2009). It read “A brutally honest epic of domestic proportions.”
LITERATURE
AMIT CHAUDHURI
by Oct 29, 2009
“My interest in the English language is not just to do with a relationship with empire,” says novelist Amit Chaudhuri. At least, not the British Empire. For him, Indians have to contend with an empire of a different kind: their own.
LITERATURE
JOANNA HOWARDS ON WINDING STAIR
by Oct 28, 2009
Joanna Howard’s dizzying tales of drowned sailors, glowing specters, reclusive dandies, and roguish pursuers start like the strike of a match: they ignite in an instant to a dazzling flame and then just as suddenly die out.
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ON THE NEW RUSSIAN REALISM: QUESTIONS FOR THE EDITORS OF RASSKAZY: NEW FICTION FROM A NEW RUSSIA
by Oct 26, 2009
Few countries have undergone more radical transformations than Russia has, so it’s easy to assume that with each geopolitical quake the country’s cultural continuity gets split along the resulting fault lines.
LITERATURE
FROM THE ARCHIVE THE INVISIBLE ISSUE
by Oct 23, 2009
Winter 1998 Issue #62 at a yearly subscription of $18.00/year, BOMB Magazine introduced a smaller format and switched from saddle stitched binding: the soft-folded stapled kind, to perfect binding: the boxed and glued kind.
LITERATURE
RACHEL LEVITSKY: WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOUR
by Oct 19, 2009
In the close quarters of New York City, unless you have great walls, you often become acquainted with your neighbors’ musical tastes, the hours they keep, and even the sex life they may or may not have. Rachel Levitsky’s innovative, smart, and beautifully designed new book Neighbor (Ugly Duckling Presse 2009) illuminates this odd relationship between urban neighbors through a dated log of poetic entries.
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RECKONING WITH TORTURE
by Oct 16, 2009
Eight years ago, September 11th transformed New York City into a crowded hive of anxiety. Since then, there have been innumerable changes in our lives.
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MAGGIE NELSON: TRUE BLUE
by Oct 12, 2009
Maggie Nelson’s most recent book Bluets (Wave Books, 2009) is a poetic nonfiction meditation on the color blue. She starts with “Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color,” and goes on to illuminate several factual, historical, and sometimes personal experiences with the color blue.
LITERATURE
LOVE IN INFANT MONKEYS BY LYDIA MILLET
by Oct 07, 2009
In Lydia Millet’s new short story collection, Love in Infant Monkeys, she treats animals as rock star characters, paralleling them with real-life celebrities to create stories both eccentric and, in unexpected ways, honest.
LITERATURE
A MARYLAND ORESTEIA: MICHAEL MEWSHAWS LYING WITH THE DEAD
by Oct 06, 2009
A throwback to the great Faulknerian family sagas, Lying with the Dead is populated by characters obsessed with the traumas lurking in their pasts.
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MARY JO BANG: THE BRIDE OF ALLITERATION
by Oct 05, 2009
Mary Jo Bang’s poems are full of elbows and sharp, uncomfortable angles. She skillfully delves into the harsh crevices of life and mind and illuminates them with her alliterative, controlled verse.
LITERATURE
ROBERT FITTERMAN AND VANESSA PLACE'S NOTES ON CONCEPTUALISMS
by Oct 02, 2009
Robert Fitterman and Vanessa Place’s book Notes On Conceptualisms is one of the first books to take on the term “conceptualism” in relation to recent practices in contemporary poetry, offering a preliminary textbook on the subject.
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WHY IS POETRY IMPORTANT?
by Oct 02, 2009
The first time I saw Ryan Adams perform I was working at a free concert on July 4, 2003, in Battery Park. My job was to stand backstage and get whatever anyone needed—food, water, sun block.
LITERATURE
SO WHAT EXACTLY IS CONTEMPORARY WRITING: AN INTERVIEW WITH KENNETH GOLDSMITH
by Oct 02, 2009
Read the following interview with the the movement’s original mastermind himself.
LITERATURE
STEPHEN ELLIOT
by Sep 30, 2009
The Adderall Diaries, a nonfiction work written by Stephen Elliott and out this month, is not a book about Adderall. And though Elliott’s intent was to focus on the murder trial of Hans Reiser, It really isn’t even a book
LITERATURE
SUBTEXT: CHERYL DUMESNIL GETS UP
by Sep 28, 2009
Cheryl Dumesnil’s first book In Praise of Falling is the winner of the 2008 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. It begins with the Zen proverb, “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” This proverb could be a mantra for any aspiring writer.
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SAVAGE BY JACQUES JOUET
by Sep 22, 2009
What, at this point in time, can we make of a man,” the narrator of Jacques Jouet’s most recent novella, Savage, asks himself.
LITERATURE
SURVIVOR: POETRY EDITION
by Sep 21, 2009
Campbell McGrath’s latest collection, Shannon, is a book-length poetic narrative about George Shannon, the youngest member of the Corps of Discovery a.k.a The Lewis and Clark Expedition. McGrath creates the unrecorded history of the 16 days George Shannon went missing from the expediti
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IAN MCKENZIE
by Sep 18, 2009
Susan Y. Chi talks to Ian MacKenzie about his debut novel, City of Strangers.
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LYRAE VAN CLIEF STEFANON: THE ASTRONOMY OF POETRY
by Sep 08, 2009
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon’s latest book is a lovely meditation on the concept of distance. Open Interval attempts to measure and name the distances between thoughts and bodies, celestial and/or physical.
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MATTHEW ROHRER: POULTRY AND POETRY?
by Aug 31, 2009
What do poultry and poetry have to do with each other? Matthew Rohrer attempts to answer this question in his latest book of poems, A Plate of Chicken.
LITERATURE
AKILAH OLIVER: GOOD GRIEF
by Aug 26, 2009
I encountered Akilah Oliver’s most recent book A Toast in the House of Friends (Coffee House Press 2009) with a bit of trepidation as I read “An erudite, gripping manifesto of grief” on the back cover.
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SUBTEXT: LISA BIRMAN'S VALENTINE TO THE UNITED STATES
by Aug 12, 2009
The word “Valentine” can’t help but invoke images of cheap, cheesy paper Garfield valentines and boxes of colorful, chalky heart candies that say “Be Mine” and “Hot Stuff.” However, on February 14th 2006, the Austrailian born poet Lisa Birman received a unique valentine from the United States in the form of her green
LITERATURE
SUBTEXT: THE BIBGRAPHICAL HELIUM OF STACY SZYMASZEK
by Aug 03, 2009
In the challenging tradition of Joyce and Neidecker, Stacy Szymaszek’s new book Hyperglossia is only for the brave. Avant-garde, heady stuff, it demands a lot of the reader, who is advised to keep a dictionary at hand.