Art

Dorothea Lasky’s POETRY IS NOT A PROJECT or Cutting More Lines in the Cosmic Divide

by Ben Fama April 13, 2010 Art

Dorothea Lasky’s POETRY IS NOT A PROJECT made huge waves when debuted at this years AWP.

Closing a Poem (Blogging through Grossman, Part 6)

by Micah Towery April 6, 2010 Art

How do you know when you’re “done” a poem? I’m not speaking about revision, but rather, the act of writing, particularly lyrical free verse. Donna Masini once described it to me (or a class I was in—can’t remember which), as a settling in the body: a literal sense in the poet’s body that there is [...]

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Looking at Ballad Form, and the Nature of Voice

by Joe Weil March 31, 2010 Art

We are in traditional ballad country the second Auden writes “As I Walked Out One Evening” (see “The Streets of Laredo”). He is not mocking the structure or form of the ballad (except perhaps the way a lover would tease his beloved); he is reveling in the cliche. He trusts his own ability to have fun with cliché (something Ashbery also trusts).

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Reciting your own poems from memory is for supernerds, or the worst project of my life

by Ben Fama March 30, 2010 Aesthetics

Concerning all the recent discussions about memory, recitation, etc, I thought I would try it in my own way. I should disclose that I never recite my own poems from memory at readings. I think it is corny, weird, it makes me uncomfortable, and frankly, to spend that much time memorizing your own work is kind of sick.

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Do Movie Critics Matter?

by Micah Towery March 25, 2010 Aesthetics

Journalistic standards have changed so drastically that, when I took the podium at the film circle’s dinner and quoted Pauline Kael’s 1974 alarm, “Criticism is all that stands between the public and advertising,” the gala’s audience responded with an audible hush—not applause.

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THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, ABRIDGED

by Ben Fama March 24, 2010 Aesthetics

Ben Luzzatto’s THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, ABRIDGED (UDP, 2010) is one of those rare artifacts that transfers its own actual magic—and it is real magic—until the possessed begins to lift a bit toward the sky.

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Immortality (Blogging through Grossman, Part 4)

by Micah Towery March 23, 2010 Art

I’ve decided to change my strategy for blogging through Grossman. Not only is it almost impossible to try and successfully capture the first part of the book in any systematic way (the conversation shifts too rapidly and it’s almost maddening to trace any idea), but the second part is so lovely and systematically broken down, [...]

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“Hour” by Christian Hawkey with drawings

by Simone Kearney March 23, 2010 Art

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Frank O’Hara’s “To The Poem”

by Ben Pease March 23, 2010 Art

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As If She Were a Symbol of Something

by Sarah V. Schweig March 17, 2010 Aesthetics

Before I post my regularly scheduled post, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I give you an excerpt from James Joyce’s “The Dead.”

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To Make Bach the Grund of Grundrisse and the Chaconne of a Shocked Shack

by David Shapiro March 15, 2010 Aesthetics

Today I thought I should add my secret voice to your evaluations.
Your intelligence may be genius, but remember as my mother saids also always to be nice.
A seventh grade teacher consoled me when I was teased:
You can always tell the genius by the enemies who surround him.

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