A teacher's intellectual life is often a lonely one. Over the last two weeks I've been teaching, or failing to teach, Edmund White's A Boy's Own Story to my undergraduate “Reading for Writers” class, The Queer Renaissance. Failing to teach, I say, because it’s … [Read more...]

William Gass came to read at my workplace the other day. I’d read next to nothing of his work before the pending event sent me running to the library for In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, so I wouldn’t seem too out of it. I’m absolutely in love with “The … [Read more...]

I wake up in the night and think about Iran and bird flu, bird flu in Iran and bird flu and Iran. I think that bird flu is in Nigeria. I feel ashamed for thinking that I don’t care too much about bird flu being in Nigeria but only that this increases the likelihood … [Read more...]

It’s late and I’m weary—teaching tomorrow—but wanting to write something in the way of idiosyncratic personal tribute to Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera. I’m reading the book right now with my class “Reading the Queer Renaissance.” I couldn’t, or let’s … [Read more...]

John Yau, whose art criticism in American Poetry Review always interests me despite or perhaps because of my ignorance about visual art, has an intriguing piece on Jasper Johns in the January/February issue (pp. 43-50). His thesis is that Johns has all along been … [Read more...]