Gerard Malanga, H. L. Hix, Lucie Brock-Broido, Nuruddin Farah, and more...

INTERVIEWS

The Poetry in Something: An Interview with Gerard Malanga
Interviewed by Erik La Prade
Having published his first poems by the time he was twenty-one in such venerable magazines as the Partisan Review and the New Yorker, the acclaimed photographer and writer Gerard Malanga here discusses four decades of his life in poetry.

FEATURES

Wild and Whirling Words
edited by H. L. Hix
A semi-anonymous symposium, organized by Brian Clements
In an unusual group review, six writers—Charles Altieri, Susan Briante, Elisabeth Frost, Arielle Greenberg, Frederick Turner, and Lorenzo Thomas—anonymously respond to a work of poetry criticism which has poets anonymously responding to other poet's poems. Readers are invited to continue the dialogue therein!

REVIEWS: FICTION

The Exquisite Corpse
Alfred Chester
Having twice gone out of print and lapsed into literary limbo, this extraordinary prose work's very unavailability helped to elevate it to the cult status by which it is known today. Reviewed by Mark Terrill

A Perfect Hoax
Italo Svevo
Svevo's story of an aging “man of letters” who achieves what he believes to be overdue recognition reflects his own belated acclaim for his masterwork, The Confessions of Zeno. Reviewed by Eric J. Iannelli

Links
Nuruddin Farah
Farah exposes “a nightmare of loyalties,” the intricate web of interpersonal relationships that perpetuates violence in Mogadiscio. Reviewed by Scott Esposito

Do You Hear Them?
Nathalie Sarraute
Originally published in 1972, there has never before or since been such a serious book about the giggles. Reviewed by Stephen Schenkenberg

The Long Haul
Amanda Stern
In her debut novel, Stern depicts the anguish of a doomed and dangerous relationship between two people who consume each other as ferociously as they consume drugs and alcohol. Reviewed by Stephanie Anderson

The Dead Letter & The Figure Eight
Metta Fuller Victor
& That Affair Next Door & Lost Man's Lanes
Anna Katherine Green
For readers who think that thrillers about serial killers are a product of our tawdry age, here are four 19th-century sensationalist classics that are titillating, vulgar, and moralistic by turns. Reviewed by Kris Lawson

REVIEWS: NONFICTION

Owl's Head
Rosamond Purcell
Three memoirs are embedded in this unique book, as artist-collector Rosamond Purcell searches for eye-catching detritus in a scrapyard in the small town of Owls Head, Maine. Reviewed by Michelle Mitchell-Foust

Devotional Cinema
Nathaniel Dorsky
Based on a lecture the avant-garde filmmaker delivered at a conference on religion and cinema, Devotional Cinema is a celebration of what's sacred about film. Reviewed by by Christopher Luna

Mexico: The Revolution and Beyond
Agustin Victor Casasola
& Mexico-New York
Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans
Two sumptuous books contrast time and aesthetic in Mexican photography. Reviewed by John Toren

Restoring the Burnt Child: A Primer
William Kloefkorn
A noted poet's second memoir grapples with how 1940s middle America shaped its boys into men. Reviewed by James Walkowiak

The Origins of Totalitarianism
& Responsibility and Judgment
Hannah Arendt
Two profound and sober works by this unshrinking philosopher take on the defining issues of 20th-century politics. Reviewed by Rick Canning

Assembling Art: The Machine and the American Avant-Garde
Barbara Zabel
The author examines four avant-garde artists working in different genres to develop evidence of the new American identity steeped in technology. Reviewed by Stacy Brix

REVIEWS: POETRY

Fathom
& Neo-Surrealism; or, the Sun at Night
Andrew Joron
Joron is both a participant and elucidator of the ethereal practice of Neo-Surrealism in these recent publications. Reviewed by Noah Eli Gordon

Writing Through: Translations and Variations
Jerome Rothenberg
This unusual "selected poems" provides an intimate portrait of Jerome Rothenberg by incorporating his life-long dialogue with otherness. Reviewed by Jay Besemer

The Escape
Jo Ann Wasserman
In Jo Ann Wasserman's riveting and important first collection, she uses her two battling hands to write about her two great preoccupations: “Writing” and “My mother.” Reviewed by Michelle Mitchell-Foust

The Columbia Anthology of Modern Korean Poetry
edited by David R. McCann
Koreans have been writing poetry since the rise of their civilization; this anthology provides a generous sampling from the Modern age that shows a range of styles and subjects. Reviewed by Sun Yung Shin

Living in the Past
Philip Schultz
Schultz's urgent lines tug and travel, propelled by multiple voices, guttural expressions, and Hebrew incantations, all of which becomes the musical embellishment in this book-length memoir in verse. Reviewed by Maureen Picard Robins

Trouble in Mind
Lucie Brock-Broido
In her long-awaited third book, Brock-Broido's words, lines, and even line breaks appear so masterfully wrought that they invite the reader to pause and bend close to them—yet that is both their strength and their weakness. Reviewed by A. A. Farman