In three of this month’s collections, we find ourselves in the shower with the speaker. In Armen Davoudian’s opening poem, a mother and son: the speaker steps out in his mother’s “lavender robe de chambre,” careful not to spill though “you’d forgive the spillage, or forget.” The poem ends, “What else will you love me […]
“Louder Than Hunger” joins a very small shelf of novels and memoirs that address eating disorders from a male point of view. Credit…Ben Wiseman LOUDER THAN HUNGER , by John Schu Jake Stacey is trying to erase himself from the world. Just 13, he is wasting away — shunning food and rollerblading frantically to drop […]
The Great Read It’s one of the best-selling Y.A. novels of all time and a star-studded Coppola movie from the ’80s. On its way to Broadway, the show’s cast and creators paid S.E. Hinton a visit. Members of “The Outsiders” cast in Tulsa, from left, Emma Pittman, Kevin William Paul, Dan Berry, Sky Lakota-Lynch, Jason […]
The American poet Maggie Smith (born 1977) has become one of the most popular and most widely read contemporary poets, thanks to her poetry being shared on social media and elsewhere online. Her easy, conversational mode of address makes us feel as if we are being ushered into her confidence, but this colloquial style masks […]
Photo by Mark Olsen on Unsplash A California Towhee bounced across the deck, its brown feathers tufted like a baby chick’s, proud and naive-looking all at once. I sat very still, fingers poised on my keyboard, silently watching, not wanting to spook it away. I knew its name—towhee—because I had recently become obsessed with birds, […]
Writing can get kind of lonely sometimes. Not only that, but it can get stale. Sometimes we fall into a formula when we write books, or we can’t get ourselves past the first few chapters of an idea, or we’re stuck in the dreaded middle section of our novel for what feels like forever. It […]
Our writers and editors share some of their favorite bookshops in the city, including where they go to find classic fiction, art and design books, vintage editions, comics and zines, and writing in languages other than English. Freebird Books Cobble Hill A sign in the window of this shop, situated on a quiet stretch of […]
I have long searched for butch in writing. I pick up The Well of Loneliness every few years and cry each time the horse dies. I am working my way slowly through the thicket of Gertrude Stein, relinquishing understanding for something more like knowing. I have read Nightwood , Djuna Barnes’ ghostly evocation of a […]
Poetry and Valentine’s Day are intrinsically linked, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the long-standing tradition of ‘roses are red, violets are blue’ poems, which people often write for their beloved on 14 th February. Indeed, it’s a poet, the medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who sometimes gets the credit for popularising Valentine’s […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ is the best-known poem by Stevie Smith (1902-71). In 1995, it was voted Britain’s fourth favourite poem in a poll. First published in 1957, the poem fuses comedy and tragedy, moving between childlike simplicity and darker, more cynical touches. The poem is about a man […]
