For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] When headlines are filled with war, bigotry, pandemic, climate change, and other everyday violences, it can be hard to feel grounded. Poetry that faces these world-ending times head on can be a salve. Some of these collections directly address the times we’re living through while others will leave you with a sense of comfort … Read more
[ad_1] Here’s an awkward secret: I began writing criticism only five years ago. Only five years prior, after a significant life change, I fully committed to in-depth study of American poetry, not through traditional academia, but via a popular massive open online course called Modern & Contemporary American Poetry. In short, I’m an imposter. I’m … Read more
[ad_1] In celebration of National Poetry Month, we have initiated a new regular series to highlight poets and what they are reading. For this first list, we asked some of our favorite poets to offer a brief commentary about a recent collection they thought deserved more recognition. This is the literary-equivalent of Sophie’s Choice, yet, naturally, … Read more
[ad_1] Year-end features typically focus on “bests,” a consideration that I shy away from, perhaps a scarred memory of always being picked last for dodgeball. Because many hundreds of books are published each year, most are only very briefly in the spotlight. That always feels so inherently unfair, like having one shot at getting a … Read more
[ad_1] I don’t really know why I do this to myself. There’s no way to narrow down the fantastic poetry of any year into a brief list. Personal tastes aside, my hope is that you pick up as many poetry books—and chapbooks—as you can. Though the focus of this list is contemporary poetry, read any … Read more
[ad_1] In Persian culture, on the winter solstice, we have a variety of rituals to mark the longest night of the year, one of which is to read poetry. Perhaps it’s no surprise that poetry books are some of my favorites to review, given that cultural DNA. Concurrently, at this time of year in the … Read more
[ad_1] The narrator of Antonio Muñoz Molina’s To Walk Alone in the Crowd is a man with a 20th-century sensibility exiled in the excesses of the 21st. He’s recovering from a terrifying depressive episode, in a state alternating between “the twin poles” of nostalgia and anxiety. And because he is, above all, a passionate reader, … Read more
[ad_1] One of the enduring pleasures of poetry is how like wine, or friendship, it improves as it—and you—age. Re-read the 2019s or the 2000s, or the 1966’s to savor the context of our past, through your present vantage point. Other than live theatre, there is no other medium such as poetry so well-situated for … Read more
[ad_1] Burning Worlds is Amy Brady’s monthly column dedicated to examining how contemporary literature interrogates issues of climate change, in partnership with Yale Climate Connections. Subscribe to her monthly newsletter to get “Burning Worlds” and other writing about art and climate change delivered straight to your inbox. Unlike most books explored in this column, Felicia Luna Lemus’s Particulate Matter … Read more
[ad_1] Nikki Giovanni—one of the great poets of any generation—still has much to impart in Make Me Rain, her hybrid autobiography of poems and prose. Given the tumultuous aspects of 2020, the disruptions and dislocations of quotidian and public life, there’s a refreshing discordance in reading Giovanni’s newest and especially personal collection. Throughout the book, … Read more