Reading Ben Lerner’s new collection of poems, The Lights, I was reminded of a couplet from his 2004 debut, The Lichtenberg Figures: “I wish all … Read More
In Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights, historian Dylan Penningroth points to the journey towards civil rights for Black Americans beginning … Read More
Martin Ritt’s 1976 film The Front delivers a vivid re-creation of the 1950s Red Scare in which many of Hollywood’s most talented writers, actors, and … Read More
Though a fairly slender book, and a compelling read, Lavie Tidhar’s The Circumference of the World is difficult to summarize—a stream of stories and events … Read More
In the early pages of Oksana Vasyakina’s Wound, the narrator finds herself tucked into a small car with distant acquaintances in a small town outside … Read More
I vividly remember a moment when someone in one of my writing workshops described my writing as “blue collar” because I was writing about my … Read More
Working-class literature is a bit of an oddity. Do we mean it’s any type of literature written by an author with a working-class background? Is … Read More
Influences are strange things. They’re active, sought out, even entreated. But they’re also elusive, enigmatic, disguised. In art, in life, in social media, influences are … Read More
Mary Jo Bang’s acclaimed translation of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno starts with this unforgettable verse: “Stopped mid-motion in the middle / Of what we call our … Read More
