On the eve of the announcement of the Academy Award nominations, it's worth recalling that this year star Samuel L. Jackson called out director Steven Spielberg for misdirection. Specifically. for letting Lincoln go on and on unnecessarily: "I don't understand why it didn't just end when Lincoln is walking down the hall and the butler gives himContinue reading “Samuel L. Jackson calls out Spielberg on “Lincoln””
Category Archives: poets and poetry
Speaking of heartbreaking: For the child…and the wind
From a collection of poems about the end of the world, in the inevitable New York Times: LEAVE A MESSAGE When the wind died, there was a moment of silence for the wind. When the maple tree died, there was always a place to find winter in its branches. When the roses died, I respectedContinue reading “Speaking of heartbreaking: For the child…and the wind”
Breath is God’s intent to keep us living: Mary Karr
The inimitable Mary Karr, author of the spectacular Liar's Club and Cherry, among other excoriatingly beautiful works, is known as a memorist, but deserves to be as well-known as her poetry. She has a clutch of good ones in this month's Poetry magazine (wonderfully laid out and free on-line, as always). This one is aboutContinue reading “Breath is God’s intent to keep us living: Mary Karr”
Marlon Brando ambles insolently onstage: Paglia
Camille Paglia describes a familiar scene, and makes it new: Marlon Brando, carrying a “red-stained package” from the butcher and sporting blue-denim work clothes as the lordly, proletarian Stanley Kowalski, ambles insolently onstage at the opening of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. “Bellowing” for his adoring yet tart-tongued wife, Stanley is the strutting maleContinue reading “Marlon Brando ambles insolently onstage: Paglia”
The only ones who know spring is coming: Jack Gilbert
The poet Jack Gilbert died this week, after a long illness (which usually means cancer, but in his case meant Alzheimer's…a story well told in the Los Angeles Times). Gilbert was brilliantly eulogized in Andrew Sullivan's irreplaceable blog, and in passing Sullivan mentioned the name of his poetry editor Alice Quinn, formerly of The NewContinue reading “The only ones who know spring is coming: Jack Gilbert”
The great and the small: Mary Ruefle
From a spectacular essay in Poetry by Mary Ruefle: I remember John Moore, another teacher, who did the damnedest thing. We were studying Yeats, and at the beginning of one class Mr. Moore asked us if we would like to see a picture of Yeats. We nodded, and he held up a photograph of YeatsContinue reading “The great and the small: Mary Ruefle”
The Sessions’ source material: “On seeing a sex surrogate”
The trailer for The Sessions could hardly be more charming. This looks to be in the vein of that classic kind of ironic indy flick — a painful story told in a funny way, like Election or Heathers or Little Miss Sunshine. Wonderfully, the source material for this lauded movie — a riveting memoir/essay piece by aContinue reading “The Sessions’ source material: “On seeing a sex surrogate””
Cheever: Life is for some an exquisite privilege
Today is, Allen Gurganus reminds us, John Cheever's 100th birthday. In celebration, here's the last couple of graphs from his story The Lowboy, which is about how some people turn life into a battle over stupid possessions. No one (in my experience) has ever dramatized this all-too-common meanness so eloquently: At some point — perhapsContinue reading “Cheever: Life is for some an exquisite privilege”
Cheryl Strayed: To turn our suffering into beauty
From an unusually rich interview in The Millions, the friendliest of literary sites, with Cheryl Strayed, the author of the great and influential Wild: Cheryl Strayed: I’ve always thought that the important thing is to turn our suffering into beauty. And the image of the phoenix rising from the ashes has always been super-cool to me,Continue reading “Cheryl Strayed: To turn our suffering into beauty”
“Nothing is more permanent than the temporary”
A really good essay can be read and re-read just like a really good novel. Example: Austerity Measures: A Letter from Greece, by translator A.E. Stallings, in a recent issue of Poetry. Have read it several times. So good it's difficult to figure out what to quote in this poetry-rich piece. Every time I find aContinue reading ““Nothing is more permanent than the temporary””
Kit Stolz 