(Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2014) “I know that my name will resound in the ears of my loved ones as perfectly as a picture. And I also know that sometimes it will cease to Be a name And will be … Continued
(Shelter Island, NY: Black Cat, 2014) Rape culture is a term, somewhat overused lately, that describes the normalization of sexual assault in a society. Break it down, and you have two charged, weighty words that mean vastly different things to … Continued
Translation by Eric Abrahamsen. (San Francisco, CA: Two Lines Press, 2014) I was a taciturn and grubby child, a pint-sized pessimist that preferred the company of animals and solitude to that of my family and friends. If not on horseback, I ran everywhere … Continued
(Cambridge, MA: Alice James Books, 2014) “I imagine a star. A clove bullet/ ripping through me.” This is one way to render the feeling—a massive nuclear reaction; an intensity of flavor that parts flesh—of losing yourself in Sally Wen Mao’s … Continued
Translated from the Polish by Michael Kandel (Brooklyn, NY: Restless Books, 2014) When Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity in 1905, perhaps the most jarring conclusion drawn from his new vision of the universe was that time itself … Continued
(Seattle and New York: Wave Books, 2013.) I can’t put O’Brien’s newest poetry collection down. By this I do not mean that I am propelled through People on Sunday until the end, but rather, that I am compelled to read … Continued
Translated from Portuguese by Zoë Perry and Stefan Tobler (High Wycomb, UK: And Other Stories, 2013) Reading Rodrigo de Souza Leão’s All Dogs Are Blue is like taking an acid-fueled journey into a mystified reality. The novel is about everything … Continued
I thought you were an anchor in the drift of the world; but no: there isn’t an anchor anywhere. —William Bronk You aren’t forgotten. How could so much of us ever be? When you left this life, an anchor … Continued
First, it’s hard. Take the opening line from the opening poem of Bronk’s 1993 collection, The Mild Day. “It’s like going to Africa to live.” What? What’s like that? You can scan the rest of the short poem and never … Continued
Translated from Spanish by Nick Caistor (New York City, NY: New Vessel Press, 2013) The Missing Year, the first novel by Argentinian writer Pedro Mairal to be translated (excellently, by Nick Caistor) into English, is a slim 118 pages, beautifully … Continued
(New York, NY: A Strange Object, 2013) Continuing in the tradition of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s dark fairytales, the jaded yet occasionally hopeful romanticism of Miranda July, and the magical realism of Karen Russell and Ramona Ausubel, newcomer Kelly Luce crafts narratives … Continued
(Portland, OR: Octopus Books, 2013) From Catullus to Carson, poets have grappled with how to properly address the dead, seeking a vocabulary that can perform the burial ritual, communicate sorrow, can celebrate and perhaps even immortalize. Are words ever enough, … Continued
(New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014) If you had to sum up what he did to me, I’d say it was this. He made me sing along to all the bad songs on the radio. Both when he loved … Continued
Translated from the Hungarian by Paul Olchvary (New York, NY: New Directions, 2013) Every summer, my family and I embark on a week-long vacation to rural New Hampshire. There is a small “old world” style resort there, replete with century … Continued