Skip to main content

June reading

Finished from earlier:
Chord, Rick Barot 

Finished:
Life on Mars, Tracy Smith 
The Triggering Town: Lectures, Richard Hugo
Bright Dead Things, Ada Limon 
Second Empire, Richie Hofmann 
Toxicon and Arachne, Joyelle McSweeney 

In progress:
Into Each Room We Enter, Charif Shanahan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

greatness

The NY Times has run an excellent article on greatness in poetry. It's always interesting to read NY Times on poetry -- there was a fascinating one about Jorie Graham's entrance to Harvard (Valhalla?) -- because NY Times believes in poetry, but is egoistic enough to be upset when it's confronted with something it doesn't understand. That's a very useful quality, because it respectfully/hesitantly calls a pear a pear, instead of some helium-filled blather. Maybe because of it, the article anointed only one great post-Eliot poet: Elizabeth Bishop. I'm pleased and agree. (There was some noise about Ashbery, but we'll see what happens 20 years after he's dead, which means in roughly 10 years. I mean, 21.) The criterion that article settled on for greatness is: “demonstrating the qualities that make poetry seem interesting and worthwhile to such a degree that subsequent practitioners of the art form have found her work a more useful resource than the work ...
1 comment
Read more

Shiji (史记)

A. Sima Qian's account in his seminal 史记 ( Shiji , History Record - usually translated as 'Records of the Grand Historian') of six assassins is probably the most absorbing part of that work. But why would Sima Qian devote a section on commoners in a work that otherwise considers only nobility and rulers? Perhaps the better question is: what's the effect of this inclusion on us?
1 comment
Read more

August 2023

  Completed : John Ashbery, The Double Dream of Spring Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red Anne Carson, Decreation Anders Carlson-Wee, The Low Passions Franny Choi, Soft Science Louise Gluck, Averno Julian Gewirtz, Your Face My Flag Susan Howe, My Emily Dickinson Joanna Klink, Excerpts from a Secret Prophecy Dong Li, The Orange Tree Rowan Riccardo Philips, Heaven Lee Ann Roripaugh, tsunami vs. the fukushima 50 Adam Scheffler, Heartworm Solmaz Sharif, Customs Danez Smith, Homie Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler Mai der Vang, Afterland Jenny Xie, The Rupture Tense Monica Youn, Blackacre  (reread) In progress : Daniel Borzutsky, The Performance of Becoming Human Dionne Brand, Nomenclature Alex Dimitrov, Together and by Ourselves Louise Gluck, Proofs and Theories Jorie Graham, Runaway Susan Howe, Quarry Carl Philips, Then the War: Selected Poems Lisa Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip Mai der Vang, Yellow Rain C.D. Wright, One Big Self
Post a Comment
Read more