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Marilyn Monroe as Chanteuse [by David Lehman]
We don't think of her as a singer, but Marilyn Monroe (whose birthday it is) sang — and sang well. Unlike Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak in Pal Joey, Deborah Kerr in The King…
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Next Line, Please: “If history can teach us anything…” [by Virginia Valenzuela]
This week's prompt on Next Line, Please is inspired by that rare gem, the delivery of a great line. In The Godfather: Part II, when you hear Michael Corleone tell Tom Hagen, “If anything…
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Walt Whitman at 200: Brian Clements’s “Every Atom”
It's been a greattwo hundred years since you joined the raceand you're still out in frontby a length or more,Walt Whitman,whom I still see in the supermarket. — Alien Ginsberg See the celebration of…
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Rockin’ in Rhythm [Duke Ellington]
Duke Ellington at his greatest. He recorded "Rockin' in Rhythm" four times in 1931 the first time at the Cotton Club in Hartlem that January.
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A Marvell of a Poet [by David Lehman]
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) has been called “the greatest minor poet in the English language.” There’s plenty of competition for this curious distinction, but the case for Marvell is strong, especially…
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Whitman in Washington [by Terence Winch]
For six years I worked in the old Patent Office Building in Washington, where the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery are located. The building began its service to the people in…
