Society

What is the relationship between art and society? Includes technology, the internet, sexuality, and topics.

At National Tool

by Joe Weil February 22, 2012 Society

Ideas are never as important as appearances and narratives. The groove of the story can outlast any series of good ideas, and no idea stands a chance unless it can find a groove.

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Possibility and Grace

by Joe Weil February 8, 2012 Society

This is a strange story. It is liable to get me laughed at.

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Reflections on “The &NOW Festival of New Writing” in San Diego, 2011

by Gene Tanta January 9, 2012 Society

Poetry and poetics matter because words create the contours of what we can do.

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Disabilty as talent: The perfection of the broken

by Joe Weil December 14, 2011 Society

I have an older brain damaged brother, Peter. In 1953, a small pox vaccination failed to localize and shot up to his brain.

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New Jersey Transit Today

by Adam Fitzgerald November 21, 2011 Society

It’s all a spectacle — something not able to be understood (a young woman takes her life by walking into an oncoming speeding Amtrak train at 4:45 PM on a beautiful day).

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The actual slaughter of the gods: The Great Gatsby, Goldman Sachs, and Zombies

by Joe Weil November 8, 2011 Society

We worship death and call it ultimate life.

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Why E-books are not Books (and will probably change publishing)

by Micah Towery October 24, 2011 Society

Until now, many publishers have treated e-books as an extension of the book: hardcover, paperback, e-book. It’s not; it’s an entirely different medium.

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A Truly Democratic Poetry

by Joe Weil October 7, 2011 Poetry and Poetics

American literature sprung truly from the soil of democracy would be lively, but unrefined, poor on rules of thumb, sacrificing refinement to vitality.

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Metaphysicians in the Dark: Poetry, Thinking, and Nostalgia for the Idea

by Daniel Tutt September 7, 2011 Poetry and Poetics

Does poetry think with philosophy? Or might we re-pose the question: does poetry rely on philosophy to think?

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Why I Hate “The Arts”

by Joe Weil August 31, 2011 Aesthetics

Perhaps it is the ends of art I hate–the way it is “valued” rather than integrated into the dynamic of being alive.

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If Plato came back today and saw the workshop, craft obsessed nature of poetics, he’d give his approval, but not for reasons poets might like: Plato would approve because the stupidity of inspiration has been removed from the writing of poems.

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