THIS LARGE ANTHOLOGY has three very different introductory pieces: a foreword by Cheryl Clarke; an essay titled “Mouths of Rain: Be Opened,” by Alexis Pauline Gumbs; and an introduction by the editor, Briona Simone Jones. Cheryl Clarke assesses the importance of this book in the context of writing by and about people of African descent, especially women and members of LGBT communities.
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THE WASTELAND is an imaginative novel constructed around the secret gay life of poet T. S. Eliot and the creation of his monumental poem The Waste Land, which was published in 1922. It portrays Eliot as a lonely, tormented man, conflicted between finding true love and achieving literary success.
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In the end, it seems, [Tim] Dlugos came to question nearly everything, including even his desire to be a poet. But, in his best work, he leaves behind a freshness and honesty that still rings true. New York Diary underscores anew the loss of this beautiful and important voice.
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Book Reviews of The Fall of America Journals, 1965-1971 by Allen Ginsberg, On the Red Hill: Where Four Lives Fell into Place, Angels on a Freight Train: A Story of Faith and Queer Desire in Nineteenth-Century America, Shared Secrets: The Queer World of Newbery Medalist Charles J. Finger, As Far as I Can Tell: Finding My Father in World War II by Phil Gambone, Catrachos: Poems, The Renunciations, and Sonata Form.
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THE TITLE of Judy Grahn’s sixteenth book beckons readers into a world in which all living species share a net of consciousness, a mind as distinct from the brain as a biological organ. The ten essays and “true stories” in the Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit exhibit an openness to phenomena that enables Grahn to explore what she describes as her sensory, cellular, and spirit-related consciousness.
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MARCEL PROUST is having a very good year: 2021 marks the sesquicentennial of his birth as well as the centenary of his winning the Prix Goncourt—France’s pre-eminent prize for literature. It also marks the publication in English of a book of new work, The Mysterious Correspondent …
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BY THE TIME animal painter Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899) died, she had been one of the most famous and financially successful establishment artists in France for half a century. Railway tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt had bought the canvas regarded as her masterpiece, the 8’ x 16’ Horse Fair in Paris (1853), for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wealthy collectors on both sides of the Atlantic had regularly commissioned canvases from her. …
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Among the surprises in Wild Visionary is the extent of Sendak’s devotion to Herman Melville, for whose Pierre, or The Ambiguities he produced a series of wonderfully homoerotic illustrations. And I was previously unaware of Sendak’s work for AIDS causes.
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AT AGE 21, John Wieners (1934–2002) was high on poetry. The Black Mountain College student wrote to a friend in the spring of 1955, “I just know now that as long as I live I will be a poet, that my life, way of and function of, will be the writing of poetry, as long as it lasts.” …
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In his new biography Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires, Richard Bradford chronicles the life and work of Highsmith with an emphasis on what is not widely known about her.
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