Monthly Archive:: May 2012
“Pineapples Don’t Have Sleeves”: On Assessing Absurdity
In the days immediately following my last post, in which I stumbled semi-sensically through the difficulties of assessing images that are designed (at least in part) to resist explanation, Facebook lit up with a series of articles about a talking pineapple that recently appeared on a New York Public
Small Presses—Where to Look for Intriguing Poetry
As a poet, I am always trying to do new things with my own work, trying to push my own boundaries so that I don’t end up writing the same poem over and over in the same way for the rest of my life. The tough question is, how
The Variations
The Variations John Donatich Henry Holt & Co., February 2012 288 Pages $25.00 One notable fact about John Donatich’s protagonist in The Variations, a priest named Dominic, is that the narration never refers to him as “Father.” His elderly mentor, Father Carl, is always given proper accreditation, but Dominic
First Drafts: Fiction
A Conversation with Lauren Groff, Kevin Moffett, and Christine Schutt This week, I’m excited to introduce a series of conversations I’ll be posting in the coming months: First Drafts. I’m talking to writers across genres about that tenuous and thrilling moment when something new arrives and, in one way
Some Notes on Narcissism, The Line and Poets By Name
A fiction writer once told me that she thought most American poetry was apolitical and self-centered. Here’s the poem she made up to go along with her feeling: I was looking out the window upon a field thinking about myself. The line breaks are mine. I can see her
Hearing Voices: Women Versing Life presents Sun Yung Shin
I was fifteen when I decided I would make myself appreciate Emily Dickinson. One summer afternoon I sat down on my bedroom floor with a small book of Dickinson poems I’d been given as a gift and a dictionary. I’d never looked up so many words (I was not