At first blush, Kent Johnson’s proposal makes a lot of sense. Problem: how to reenergize the review mechanism, which — as Johnson has it — suffers from the puffery of academic poet-careerists who are only too willing to forgo genuine critique for the chance to gain a leg up in the poetry lottery. Though Johnson’s […]
Nonfiction
SOME DARKER BOUQUETS: A ROUNDTABLE
Note: The following letter responds to an editorial comment and three reviews by Jason Guriel, published in the March, 2009 issue of Poetry. Because portions of this letter were initially posted at Poetry’s online version, it could not be included in the print version of the magazine. In any case, the issues broached here regarding practices of reviewing in […]
THE UNBEARABLE TIGHTNESS OF JEANS: The ‘Scene’ as Sociolinguistic Construct by Raul Clement
I. There’s something happening in Portland. Or maybe there isn’t. Portland, Oregon—population, 575,000, average annual rainfall, 43 inches—has been referred to as the “indie-rock Mecca” and, less flatteringly, the “indie-rock Epcot Center.” Home to artists as obscure as Jared Mees and the Grown Children, and those as famous as The Decembrists, The Shins, and Isaac […]
NECESSITY IS THE MOTHERFUCKER OF INVENTION: thoughts on the delete button by David-Baptiste Chirot
I. Reading about the genocides in Rwanda recently, one aspect of their carrying out struck me in a way it had not before. This was the sealing off of the areas in which the killings were to be done not only physically but electronically. All electricity within these zones was cut, as well as all […]
