Critical Essays Archive
Bi+ Visibility in Poetry
As a student poet, I never once read a book of poetry I knew to be written by a bi+ poet, much less one who expressly addressed and celebrated a non-monosexual identity.
The Liminal Act of Writing
Jenny Boully delicately traces the in-between in her collection of lyric essays on the writing life.
“What’s the difference between a poet and a storyteller?”: An Interview with P.E. Garcia
P.E. Garcia is a poet and writer whose work often defies expectations. Their poetry and fiction speak to truths that are often unwanted: that marginalized bodies exist in all spaces and no spaces; that existing in these spaces brings one closer to death.
Rage and Shame
Works by Rebecca Solnit and Lexi Freiman take a look at how women express and suppress their rage.
Reflecting on Imre Kertész’s Fatelessness
When he received the Nobel Prize, Kertész finished his acceptance speech by saying: “And if you now ask me what still keeps me here on this earth, what keeps me alive, then, I would answer without any hesitation: love.”
We Have Always Lived in the Castle: A Prelude to a Myth
Shirley Jackson’s novel takes an inverted approach to the feminist retelling of male-centric myths, starting out with relatable (if spooky) characters that eventually transform into the “neighborhood witch” archetype.
Authority and Rebellion in Feminist Poetry
In recent collections, poets Anne Champion, Carla Harryman, and Cate Peebles invoke familiar literary forms only to reframe them as vehicles for feminist critique.
Paradise Rot and the Art of Sexual Awakening
In Marjam Idriss’ new translation of Jenny Hval’s novel, the biblical Fall of Man is reimagined within a narrative of queer female desire.
Mornings with Merwin
W.S. Merwin loves mornings. In his more than fifty books, the former US Poet Laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize depicts morning’s beauty in mist, light, shadow, and birdsong. As Merwin captures these moments of nature’s awakening, he reveals the depths of his own awakenings too.
The Politics of Weather
In the wake of the recently released report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which paints a direct picture of how our weather will change in the next few decades, it’s worth taking a moment to look at how poetry has, and is, handling climate change.