A Brutal History Reimagined in “You Dreamed of Empires” – Chicago Review of Books

A Brutal History Reimagined in “You Dreamed of Empires” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] When the Mexica emperor Moctezuma sent his emissaries to report on the Spanish conquistadors under Hernán Cortés in 1519, neither side understood what the other was saying. It was only through a chain of translations between a Franciscan friar named Aguilar who spoke some Mayan and a young Nahuatl woman given to Cortés as … Read more

Finding Hope in a Brutal Climate in “There is No Good Time for Bad News” – Chicago Review of Books

Finding Hope in a Brutal Climate in “There is No Good Time for Bad News” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] In a climate of planetary crises and collapses of democracy, Aruni Kashyap’s There is No Good Time for Bad News talks about renewed prospects and survival after violence. The poems in this collection are about a landscape that has much catching up to do compared to its nation’s momentum of progression.  In “Alpha Ursae … Read more

Brutal Order and Violent Extremes in “Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018” – Chicago Review of Books

Brutal Order and Violent Extremes in “Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Daniel Borzutzky’s newest collection of poetry, Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018, examines specific violence in America, explicit within the global economic order. This collection, like his 2016 National Book Award-winning The Performance of Being Human, and Lake Michigan, examines a psychogeography of movement. There’s Pittsburgh, Chile, the American Middle West. Bodies … Read more