Andrew Schelling, Jane Bowles, unpublished Steinbeck, and more...

INTERVIEWS

A Conversation with Andrew Schelling
Interviewed by Shin Yu Pai
Poet, translator, and essayist, Andrew Schelling teaches poetry, Sanskrit, and wilderness writing at Naropa University. Here he discusses everything from Tantric texts to poetry's role in the "grand ecology theater."

FEATURES

The Gathering Spirit of Jane Bowles
Essay by Jon Carlson
Where is Jane Bowles buried—and why did they move her grave?

Publish Lifeboat
Essay by Ryder W. Miller
This essay explores the stormy history of John Steinbeck's novella Lifeboat, made into a motion picture directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

REVIEWS: POETRY

The Guns and Flags Project
Geoffrey G. O'Brien
Written in a stark, impersonal tone and resisting any easy intimacies, O'Brien's first book of poems distills a rare elemental language in this age of hype and consumerism. Reviewed by Steve Healey

Book of My Nights
Li-Young Lee
In this long-awaited third volume of poetry, Lee collects 35 lyrical nocturnes that mark a shift to a more hermetic mode of expression. Reviewed by M. L. Schuldt

Airs, Waters, Places
Bin Ramke
The genuine world—the ontological world—is nowhere and in all things, hidden and ubiquitous at once. Ramke's latest offering discovers a world in which we strike for wisdom where we can. Reviewed by Dan Beachy-Quick

The Fiddler's Trance
Floyd Skloot
Floyd Skloot is revealed again as a poet of strong narrative and formal command, best when imaging the myth and history of the almost modern artists and aristocracy of the 19th and early 20th century. Reviewed by Lynnell Edwards

Days
Hank Lazer
In his latest collection of poems, a series of ten-line poems written almost daily over the course of a year, Lazer once again pushes the boundaries of genre. Reviewed by Cynthia Hogue

And Things Happen for the First Time
Iztok Osojnik
Author of more than 16 books, Slovenian poet Iztok Osojnik writes imagistic poems that develop a direct vision of life's ironies, paradoxes, and contradictions. Reviewed by Susan Smith Nash

REVIEWS: FICTION

When Eve Was Naked: Stories of a Life's Journey
Josef Skvorecky
Approaching seventy, with nearly twenty books behind him, this Czech dissident and émigré publisher has been telling the story of his life through his characters for more than four decades. Reviewed by Tricia Cornell

Iceland
Jim Krusoe
Krusoe's first novel delights in the surreal, "the bloated, spongy butterflies of lungs, the shy parenthesis of kidneys, the lurid exclamation marks of livers, the cheerful blimps of stomach..." Reviewed by Carrie Mercer

Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!
Kenzaburo Oe
A perfect introduction to this Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author's sometimes bizarre but always humanist fiction, Rouse Up follows the story of K who uses passages of Blake's poetry to teach his severely retarded son about life and death. Reviewed by Jason Picone

Ghost of a Flea
James Sallis
Hardboiled detective and washed up writer Lew Griffin becomes embroiled in a series of mysteries, the greatest of which is the question: What happened to his life? Reviewed by Kris Lawson

False Positive
Harold Jaffe
Each "story" in this new collection is a newspaper article that Jaffe has "treated," which is to say, blasted, uncovered, ruptured, expanded, exposed, scrutinized, and/or fictionalized to reveal an often insidious subtext. Reviewed by Mark Tursi

Burning the Sea
Sarah Pemberton Strong
In this debut novel, Strong explores the idea that all politics originate in the physical and personal body. Reviewed by Rebecca Weaver

REVIEWS: NONFICTION

Digital Poetics: The Making of E-Poetries
Loss Pequeño Glazier
The standard definition of hypertext has grown too narrow, but a "useful definition of e-writing" may not be so desirable. Reviewed by Joel Weishaus

The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten: Life Beyond the Cult
Karlene Faith
Recently denied parole, Van Houten continues to pay her debt to society. Learn more about her involvement with the Manson murder spree and what she did, or rather did not, do. Reviewed by Meleah Maynard

East Toward Dawn
Nan Watkins
Unafraid of any new adventure, Watkins shares her extreme experiences in this part memoir, part travel journal. Reviewed by Carrie Mercer

Everything You Know Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Lies
edited by Russ Kick
Buckle your seat belt for a high speed ride into the land of occultism, conspiracy theory, deviant sexuality, and government wrongdoing—a.k.a. the good old U. S. of A. Reviewed by Christopher Luna

Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution
Francis Fukuyama
Biotechnology has trumped philosophy, and scattershot experiments with the stuff of life are now driving history. With natural law no longer being debated but rewritten, can Fukuyama handle the pressure? Reviewed by N. N. Hooker