Round-Up: The World’s Oldest Library, Iron Man, and a New Random House Imprint
From the re-opening of the worlds oldest working library to a new Random House imprint, here are this week's biggest literary stories.
My Uncle’s Books
A year and a half ago, my uncle Chuck died unexpectedly. My family wanted me to have his books because I was a reader like he had been, and I was also a writer. And I wanted the books, especially his Library of America books.
Journey into the Unknown: An Investigation of Metaphysical Poetry
At a poetry workshop recently I heard the word metaphysical used to describe several contemporary American poets of disparate temperaments. At times metaphysical sounded erudite, at times dismissive, and I wasn’t sure I wanted it near poems and poets I loved.
Reading Elena Poniatowska’s LA NOCHE DE TLATELOLCO Amid The Oaxaca Teacher Protests
In the news this morning a picture flashed on my screen like a scene ripped directly from Elena Poneiatowska’s La Noche de Tlatelolco, a book that I teach from time to time about the ’68 student massacre in Mexico City.
Big Picture, Small Picture: Context for Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
September 14, 1919. A lynch mob gathers outside of the county jail in Monroeville, Alabama. They are there for Frank and Brown Ezell, father and son, who have just been arrested for the murder of a white store owner.
Police Violence & Street Art
It is not often that poetry goes viral on the internet, but that's what happened last month with a poetry project in Boston, Massachusetts. MassPoetry.Org and the City of Boston have teamed up to introduce poetry into the streets of the city via a water-repellant spray that reveals poems.
The Bigness of The World, The Wintry Chill of The Midwest
Lori Ostlund’s “The Bigness of The World,” a short story collection rereleased in trade paperback in February 2016, was recipient of the Flannery O’Connor award for short fiction, and if ever a prize-winning book could be argued to take after the prize’s namesake, then this is that book.
The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Freedom” by Rachel Cusk
In “Freedom,” Rachel Cusk explores the difficult task of attaining independence, both from the perspective of those who already have it and those who do not.
Hidden Idiom
Around this time last year, Jamaica held its first Pride parade. The whole thing took place in the country’s capital. There’s a smog that settles over Kingston in the afternoon, like this funk that pedestrians and motorists and bike-riders can’t avoid.
She was wearing —
It had been a rough week, and there, there, perfect and waiting for me, was a short robe on the sale rack, tissue-thin, in a pale turquoise redolent of Cannes, or what I imagine Cannes to be like, with sleeves made to drape on a languid arm.