Eileen Myles, Anthony Bourdain, Kristin Prevallet and more...

INTERVIEWS

The Art of Talking: An Interview with Eileen Myles
Interviewed by Tom Devaney
Poet, novelist, critic, editor, and teacher, Eileen Myles works toward an aesthetic which is as wily as it is independent, veraciously creating a body of work that speaks for her.

Cooking up a Mystery: An Interview with Anthony Bourdain
Interviewed by Jessica Bennett
Mystery novelist, food memoirist, and television host, Anthony Bourdain talks about The Bobby Gold Stories and the insatiable hunger that drives his multi-faceted work.

FEATURES

Promethean Risk: The Poet as Translator
Essay by Kristin Prevallet
Continuing the conversation from our print edition,
Prevallet discusses the difficulties and rewards of translating.

Belin Editions' "Voix Américaines"
Essay by Brian Evenson
Oddly enough, some of the best writing on American
writers is being published not in America but in France.

REVIEWS: POETRY

My Mojave
Donald Revell
In My Mojave as well as in his previous books, Revell has idiosyncratically pursued a moving and beautiful mode of clarity. Reviewed by Hank Lazer

Yi
Yang Lian
Yi may be China's first epic poem, incorporating Western Modernism without jettisoning Chinese cultural heritage, and demanding that we re-examine the nature of man's relationship with his surroundings. Reviewed by Lucas Klein

From Absinthe to Abyssinia: Selected Miscellaneous, Obscure and Previously Untranslated Works of Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud
Translated by Mark Spitzer
Mark Spitzer's translation of From Absinthe to Abyssinia, a collection of obscure and never before translated works by one of France's most intoxicating poets, sheds a harsh light on a much-admired heroic figure. Reviewed by Karl Krause

Rouge Pulp
Dorothy Barresi
Barresi's third book of poems marries her ear for witty, fiery language with a series of compact, concise, and fairly lyrical poems that showcase the alternately serious and sardonic voice at the center of the book's universe. Reviewed by Hannah Brooks-Motl

4x1: Tristan Tzara, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jean-Pierre Duprey and Habib Tengour
Translated by Pierre Joris
Written by four masters of European tongues and rendered into English by a masterful translator, this unique gathering contributes to what the vast field of contemporary poetics has become: a complex occasion of forces. Reviewed by Dale Smith

Never Mind: Twenty Poems and a Story
Taha Muhammad Ali
translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, Gabriel Levin
Ali's poetry arises from the fertile yet relentlessly bitter grounds of personal and collective experience as a refugee Palestinian whose village was razed by the Israelis in 1948. Reviewed by Kim Jensen

Canti Postumi
Ezra Pound
Italian Pound scholar Massimo Bacigalupo gathers together "Posthumous Cantos," in English, accompanied by essays in Italian. Reviewed by Steven Moore

REVIEWS: FICTION

All Night Movie
Alicia Borinsky
Driven by stunning prose and whirlwind of frenzied action, All Night Movie presents an oddball cast of characters, most of whom have a very skewed sense of tender loving care. Reviewed by Amy Havel

The Stone Virgins
Yvonne Vera
In a now signature style that places more emphasis on tone and symbolism than social realism, Yvonne Vera's new novel guides the reader through an African landscape filled with pervasive beauty and moments of unexpected violence in equal measure. Reviewed by Christopher J. Lee

((Frequencies))
Joshua Ortega
Not to be confused with science fiction, this novel is essentially creative nonfiction disguised as science fiction, an empowerment narrative in Philip K. Dickian clothing. Reviewed by Alan Deniro

Mangoes on the Maple Tree
Uma Parameswaran
Canadian writer Uma Parameswaran gives us a forceful yet profound look at an Indian-Canadian family negotiating the ordinary travails of daily life while acutely conscious of their national identities. Reviewed by Michelle Reale

The Perpetual Ending
Kristen den Hartog
Drifting from flashback to stream of consciousness to story-within-the-story telling, The Perpetual Ending is a powerful book about small things, the things that resonate when one looks back at the past. Reviewed by Kris Lawson

Heredity
Jenny Davidson
Heredity sidesteps time-travel and science-fiction genres, one hand reaching for the crime novel and the other tightly clutching 18th-century British memoir. Reviewed by Liz Brown

Super Flat Times
Matthew Derby
This collection of some-ways-linked, some-ways-not, stories are all of a theme: a grim, dystopic society constructed of pop-icon tropes and futuristic extensions of the 20th century's worst horrors. Reviewed by Joel Turnipseed

REVIEWS: NONFICTION

I Refuse To Die: My Journey for Freedom
Koigi wa Wamwere
Koigi wa Wamwere, the Kenyan activist who has spent thirteen years in prison since the mid-1970s, provides insight on the legacy of colonial culture in Africa in this riveting autobiography. Reviewed by Kevin Carollo

Despite Everything: A Cometbus Omnibus
Aaron Cometbus
This anthology collects selections from the 'zine Cometbus, covering subjects such as hitchhiking, dumpster diving, sleeping under garages and waking up covered by ants-all with a decidedly punk culture flavor. Reviewed by Jocko Weyland

Pharmako/Dynamis: Stimulating Plants, Potions & Herbcraft: Excitantia and Empathogenia
Dale Pendell
Why are the Heavenly Blue Morning Glories seeds always sold out in the local co-op? You'll find out in Pharmako/Dynamis, the second book in a proposed trilogy of books investigating "the nature of poisons." Reviewed by Sarah Fox

Existential America
George Cotkin
George Cotkin's overview of existentialism's influence upon American culture shows that despite the American ideals of optimism and progress, an existential strain can be followed through the works of Melville, Dickinson, and Hopper. Reviewed by Christopher Luna

Clown Paintings
edited by Diane Keaton
Acclaimed actor/director Diane Keaton shows us the startling grace of "the ugliest genre of them all." Reviewed by Andrea Balenfield

Abraham: A Journey To The Heart Of Three Faiths
Bruce Feiler
Traveling through space and time and never-ending war, Feiler traces a journey into the roots of the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in this careful and poetic history of this religious primogenitor. Reviewed by H. E. Everding

Duende
Jason Webster
Flamenco, one of the world's great art forms, is also among the grittiest and most abjectly fatalistic. Writer Jason Webster attempts to penetrate its inner heart. Reviewed by John Toren

Black Theatre: Ritual Performance in the African Diaspora
Paul Carter Harrison, Victor Leo Walker II, Gus Edwards, eds.
This collection of essays on the rich history of African-American performance is as much an anthology of cultural aesthetics, a work of anthropology, as a study of theatre. Reviewed by Justin Maxwell

REVIEWS: GRAPHIC NOVELS

Ruse: The Silent Partner
Mark Waid, Scott Beatty, Butch Guice, Mark Perkins, Laura DePuy, et al.
Follow the adventures of the much beleaguered detective Simon Archard in this thorough rearrangement of the Sherlock Holmes paradigm. Reviewed by Rudi Dornemann

30 Days of Night
Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith
The long, dark days of Barrow, Alaska, between November 18th and December 17th are perfect for a vampire feeding frenzy in this graphic horror novel. Reviewed by S. Clayton Moore