A Collapse of HorsesFrom the Print
They remain both alive and dead, which makes them not quite alive, nor quite dead. And what, in turn, carrying that paradoxical knowledge in your head, does that make you?
15 March (1853): Arthur Hugh Clough to Blanche Mary Shore Smith
Arthur Hugh Clough, English poet and onetime assistant to Florence Nightingale, writes to Mary Shore Smith, whom he would later go on to marry, about the dynamics of quotidian religion and the peculiarly egalitarian economic landscape of mid 19th century Massachusetts. … Continued
14 March (1927): Hart Crane to Allen Tate
An irreverent Hart Crane pokes fun at fellow poets Louis Gilmore and Marianne Moore, the presiding editor of The Little Review, in this bawdy letter to Allen Tate…
13 March (1841): Nikolai Gogol to S.T. Aksakov
My work is great; my work is a way of salvation. I have died for everything trifling now; must I commit unforgivable crimes with daily rubbish for the contemptible vulgar business of a journal?
12 March (1927): Federico García Lorca to Jorge Guillén
What deceit! It’s sad. But I’ve got to keep still. To speak would create a scandal…
View of Cambodia from the Back Seat of a Toyota
Every car in Cambodia is a Camry. Most are eighties models: rusted, dented, mismatched hubcaps. The one we’re in has working A/C. Our driver says it’s a ’95. He smiles. We ride the southwest coastal road from Phnom Penh to … Continued
Review: Peter Dimock’s "George Anderson: Notes for a Love Song in Imperial Time"From the Print
“George Anderson” is a rare example of strong, experimental fiction from the Left, and for all its strangeness and brevity, it manages considerable moral and political weight…
11 March (1906): William Carlos Williams to Edgar Williams
In this letter, a young William Carlos Williams shows how delightfully he can turn a phrase before delving into his fascination with the accuracy of scientific instruments, an interest which would go on to define his poetics. Univ. of Penn. … Continued
Staff Picks: Violin Sonatas, Voidoids Vids
I was in Texas a couple of weeks ago and found myself walking, walking: along highways, round cul-de-sacs, up and down Austin’s downtown boulevards. There is something lovely about long, aimless rambles in the heat, but the girl in me … Continued
Staff Picks: Abandoned Palaces, Made-Up Words
forsticulate: (v.) to interrupt others’ sentences, erroneously believing you knew what they were going to say