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Ashbery’s “Wet Casements”
This is the epigraph of John Ashbery's poem "Wet Casements" in his collection Houseboat Days: <<<When Edouardo Raban, coming along the passage, walked into the open doorway, he saw that it was raining. It…
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Handsome Movie Men (by Mitch Sisskind)
It was suggested to me that, as a sort of continuation of Mark Strand's posting about beautiful women in Hollywood, I could write something about attractive men. It's an interesting opportunity. For one thing,…
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Seventy years on: Auden’s “September 1, 1939”
September 1, 1939 I sit in one of the divesOn Fifty-second StreetUncertain and afraidAs the clever hopes expireOf a low dishonest decade:Waves of anger and fearCirculate over the brightAnd darkened lands of the earth,Obsessing…
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Watching the Dodgers with Vin Scully, Second Inning
Every now and then life intrudes into the toy department. — Sportscaster Vin Scully [left, in his Fordham days, before he began calling the BrooKlyn Dodgers' games on the radio in the 1950s] on…
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On Movies and Beauties (part one) by Mark Strand
When I was very young, say, around seven or eight, I went in for cowboy flicks. I usually went with a pack of boys my own age; we paid our dime and watched a…
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Sneak Peek . . . The Best American Poetry 2009
From David Lehman's Foreword: Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent, as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur the artist to new heights if…
