Staff Picks: J. H. Prynne, Revenge Monologues
Is the revenge monologue a feminine art?
State of the Industry: Politically Deployed Cinema at the Oscars
The 85th Academy Awards, like no show before it, will elevate films that are openly ideological, weaponized tools of the state…
Review: Will Self's "Umbrella"From the Print
Indeed, what Mr. Self excels in bringing out is the enduring if gentle dissonance potentially born of this encounter, how the world may all the while coax and corrode and twist its hidden suasions within us.
State of the Industry (Part II): And the Winner Is…The State!
What do Michelle Obama and her soldiers have to do with this awards ceremony, this trifle, this broadly acknowledged irrelevancy?
The Poets Dwell In MusclememoryFrom the Print
The supreme task of the Poets is the filming of Agony itself, but their secondary task—seeking and refining The Peep-Hole’s glimpse into The Covered Wagons—is by no means unimportant or without significant challenges…
Staff Picks: Aphorisms, Angry Readers
How Publishing is Rigged is a now-defunct blog, penned by a literary industry outsider. Its goal: “Once you get familiar with what’s available at How Publishing Is Rigged, you’ll witness that publishing is controlled by a handful of individuals and … Continued
Review: Bilge Karasu’s "A Long Day’s Evening"From the Print
A Long Day’s Evening, a short novel by the late Turkish novelist Bilge Karasu (1930-1995), is the author’s first published work in English in more than eight years. Focused primarily on the tribulations of two Byzantine monks, the novel is preoccupied … Continued
Review: James Lasdun’s "Give Me Everything You Have"
If you are a person at all familiar with the internet, you will be aware of one of its most problematic features: the pop-up. It is a thing that strikes at will, a spring-hinged box conjured by inadvertent clicking, containing … Continued
"The Shadow of the Valley" & Other PoemsFrom the Print
The shadow of the valley is a placeholder for the valley, a reminder that a body stands between those stands of bleachers, or this stand of trees or the neighborhood watchers standing around watching birds fly back and forth from their nests to the gardens in every Westwood neighborhood, all the while casting shadows that somehow don’t look like birds but like people wondering…
Lying in State: Advice for American Poets
81) Ronald Reagan murdered fourteen Marxists with his bare hands in 1982…