Kevin Samsell, Danuta Borchardt, Mary Karr, Seamus Heaney, and more...

INTERVIEWS

The Kid from Kennewick: An Interview with Kevin Sampsell
Interviewed by David Moscovich
The sheer lucidity of Kevin Sampsell's prose offers truths that lilt and twist their tiny, brave daggers into the reader.

Frenzied Sweetness: An Interview with Michael Rothenberg and David Meltzer
Interviewed by Christopher Luna
Michael Rothenberg and David Meltzer agreed to answer a few questions about their time on the road together.

Translating Gombrowicz: An Interview with Danuta Borchardt
Interviewed by Luke Sykora
English language readers who have been lucky enough to pick up and enjoy Gombrowicz in the last ten years probably have Danuta Borchardt to thank.

Feeling-Making Machine: An Interview with Mary Karr
Interviewed by Scott F. Parker
What makes Karr’s writing so rich is not the stories themselves, but her psychological acumen, her facility with language, her unapologetic honesty, and, most memorably, her charismatic narrative persona.

FEATURES

Piquancies and Attributes in Seamus Heaney’s Verve
Essay by James Naiden
A deeper look in the subject matter and influences of the Irish master’s work.

mnartists.org Presents: Paula McCartney's Bird Watching
Essay by Andy Sturdevant
A new feature presenting the exceptional work of Minnesota artists. The inaugural essay discusses the expression of McCartney's photographic frustration with capturing those elusive winged subjects.

REVIEWS: POETRY

The Front
K. Silem Mohammad
The hills are alive with the sound of Flarf. But could this be the last volley in the war? Reviewed by Morgan Myers

Deaf American Poetry
Edited by John Lee Clark
Clark has assembled a fascinating mix of poets who share little in common beyond the fact that they are deaf. Reviewed by John Jacob

Century of Clouds
Bruce Boone
& Face
Melissa Buzzeo
Two books that address the body: Boone’s poetics ring from the New Narrative and radical gay politics of 1970s San Francisco, while Buzzeo’s more recent work confronts the human and political body as represented by the face. Reviewed by Tyrone Williams

The Brittle Age and Returning Upland
René Char
Char’s writing is gracefully tethered to a poetically present metaphysics—and such philosophical instincts are clear in these bilingual editions translated by Gustaf Sobin. Reviewed by Martin Balgach

American Gothic, Take 2
Maria Terrone
Terrone wrestles the insidious spirit of banality into the light in this new chapbook. Reviewed by George Guida

Killing Kanoko
Hiromi Itō
Our latest dialogic review brings to light a new translation of work by a powerful Japanese poet. Reviewed by Lucas de Lima and Sarah Fox

Other Flowers: Uncollected Poems
James Schuyler
Other Flowers gathers many poppies into a big, showy bouquet, artfully arranged and still fragrant with life nearly twenty years after the death of this New York School poet. Reviewed by Claude Peck

Self-Portrait with Crayon
Allison Benis White
White’s poems take their titles from the work of Degas while also plumbing the experience of her own childhood. Reviewed by Stephen Burt

Transmigration
Joy Ladin
In Transmigration, by Joy (once Jay) Ladin, a male becomes a female and thus takes up physical and psychic residence in a new body. Reviewed by Warren Woessner

REVIEWS: FICTION

The One Marvelous Thing
Rikki Ducornet
In her latest wonder cabinet of short fictions, Ducornet mines moments when the marvelous becomes the monstrous and excess enlarges the world. Reviewed by Steve Tomasula

Kassandra and the Wolf
& Rien Ne Va Plus
Margarita Karapanou
Two extraordinary tales of horror from a unique Greek voice reveal aspects of girlhood and womanhood. Reviewed by Kristin Thiel

Not Normal, Illinois: Peculiar Fictions from the Flyover
Edited by Michael Martone
Martone’s anthology aims to answer the question: is there a voice typical of the vast Midwest? Reviewed by Stephanie Hlywak

Your Face Tomorrow: Poison, Shadow, and Farewell (Vol. 3)
Javier Marías
The final installment in this landmark trilogy continues the story of Jacques Deza and the spot of blood he discovers, which symbolizes the persistent evidence of dark deeds. Reviewed by John Toren

Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer
Ernst Weiss
The perversity of Weiss’s staggering novel is not one of titillating little wickednesses but a deep and thoroughgoing moral deviation. Reviewed by Micaela Morrissette

Mozart’s Journey to Prague
Eduard Mörike
This stellar novella, an unrecognized classic of the 19th century, possesses a sensibility closer to that of modern self-aware fiction. Reviewed by W. C. Bamberger

Auto-Erotica
Stacia Saint Owens
In stark, surreal evocations of the damaged and rapidly imploding dystopia commonly called Southern California, Saint Owens reveals the macabre through narrative dream states in which the grotesque becomes distressingly commonplace. Reviewed by Charles Dodd White

English
Wang Gang
This coming-of-age novel takes place during the Cultural Revolution in a distant province of China where language is the avenue of seduction. Reviewed by Lucas Klein

The Museum of Innocence
Orhan Pamuk
Pamuk’s latest tome is a stunning depiction of one of the world’s great cities as seen through the eyes of excess. Reviewed by Joshua Willey

The Owl Killers
Karen Maitland
Set near the coast of west Norfolk in 1321, Maitland's novel relates a tale of conflict between the women of the Beguine faith and the priesthood of the Church. Reviewed by Spencer Dew

Cairo Swan Song
Mekkawi Said
The Egyptian narrator and his overbearing American girlfriend struggle to make a documentary film about his country’s homeless children. Reviewed by M. Lynx Qualey

REVIEWS: NONFICTION

Lift
Rebecca K. O’Connor
In this memoir of literal and figurative flight, an animal trainer and parrot behaviorist weaves her growing faith in her falcon with her history of wounded trust. Reviewed by Jessica Handler

Technologized Desire: Selfhood and the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction
D. Harlan Wilson
In his first book of critical theory, Wilson analyzes the self (or the “terminal self”) in a variety of science-fictional speculations that explore the role of technology and media in relation to the future of late capitalism. Reviewed by Andy Stewart

The Birth and Death of the Cool
Ted Gioia
Utilizing his experience as a jazz historian and cultural observer, Gioia claims that the social aesthetic of “cool” is going out of style. Reviewed by Rebecca Morales

Dada in Paris
Michel Sanouillet
Revived interest in the Dada movement over the past decade has resulted in the revival of classic critical texts, including Sanouillet’s unique and lively history. Reviewed by Jay Besemer

What I Believe
Tariq Ramadan
While many criticize this religious thinker, Ramadan here offers a succinct attempt to clarify his stance on Islamic law and practice. Reviewed by Spencer Dew

A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs
David Lehman
Lehman’s book of essays is a true romance with this music—he has written a love poem in prose format, sprinkled with New York Jewish patois and rhymes. Reviewed by Douglas A. Smith

Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label that Got Big and Stayed Small
John Cook, Mac McCaughan, and Laura Ballance
A moving oral history of the “indie label that got big and stayed small.” Reviewed by Kevin Carollo

William T. Vollmann: A Critical Study and Seven Interviews
Michael Hemmingson
Despite the typos, this is a worthy collection for those both familiar and new to Vollmann’s work. Reviewed by Jeff Bursey

Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression
Morris Dickstein
Illustrated by eyewitness testimony and cultural artifacts, this book is a timely study of 1930s literature, film, photography, and music. Reviewed by Tim W. Brown

Conversations with Julian Barnes
Edited by Vanessa Guignery and Ryan Roberts
These eighteen conversations reveal the mind of a private, relaxed, and mindful English author who stolidly maintains this dignity throughout. Reviewed by Jeff Bursey

The Extended Words: An Imaginary Dictionary
Sid Gershgoren
Gershgoren has compiled a list of plausible-sounding words, defined them, and provided invented quotations that demonstrate their use, inviting the reader to join in on the fun. Reviewed by Jenny Dunning

Across the Plains
Sarah Royce
More than 150 years after Sarah Royce first set out as a pioneer bound for California, her story is finally reissued in full. Reviewed by Emy Farley

REVIEWS: GRAPHIC NOVELS

Batman and Robin: Batman Reborn
Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, and Philip Tan
In his latest superhero reconfiguration, Morrison takes a bold leap of changing the very essence of the long-standing Batman and Robin dynamic, making the most famous superhero team in pop culture fresh and relevant once again. Reviewed by James Fleming

Devi, Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4
Shekhar Kapur
In order to “redefine the Indian entertainment industy,” filmmaker Shekhar Kapur introduces graphic retellings of the Hindu gods, with mixed results. Reviewed by Spencer Dew