-
Thoreau’s Nephew: Romania’s Literary Slaughterhouse [by Tara Skurtu]
Poets be warned. Only in Romania is there a poetry reading series known as the slaughterhouse. It’s called Thoreau’s Nephew (Nepotu´ lui Thoreau) and takes place in a brightly painted, very smoky bar called…
-
WSJ Message in a Bottle: David Lehman Takes On Jack Daniel’s Sinatra Century
PHOTO: LETTERING BY ANGELA SOUTHERN; F. MARTIN RAMIN/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (BOTTLE) 1. The Background Frank Sinatra discovered Jack Daniel’s one sleepless night in the early 1940s. “It’s been the oil to my engine…
-
Sir Walter Raleigh’s “On the Cards and Dice” [by David Lehman]
Before the sixth day of the next new year,Strange wonders in this kingdom shall appear:Four kings shall be assembled in this isle,Where they shall keep great tumult for awhile.Many men then shall have an…
-
Poetry at Stake [by Tara Skurtu]
Poetry has the logic of memory, the spontaneity of dreams, yet is much like calculus—each line is, in a sense, an asymptote composed of and continually approaching the limits of language in an attempt…
-
The Committees in our Heads: on Fear and Writing [by Tara Skurtu]
Raise your hand if you’re scared of writing. I am. I’m terrified of writing anything that’s not a poem. Especially blogs. They remind me of casual conversation, recorded. Or of a close-up photoshoot, a…
-
On the Impossibility of Teaching Creative Writing [by Tara Skurtu]
Have you ever heard of a tipperau? This is the first thing I ask my composition and creative writing students when I walk into a classroom on day one. They look at me, confused.…
