I've been to a couple of wonderful poetry events in recent days. On April 27, I had the great privilege of participating in a public reading of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass at the New York Historical Society. In the event, we took over two and a half hours … [Read more...]

Is the apocalyptic mindset somehow a “white thing”? Is that why anti-nuclear demonstrations usually look so pale? Could it be that the “most oppressed” have more urgent things to worry them, that concern for the fate of the Earth is a bourgeois luxury? And could it … [Read more...]

It’s strange, isn’t it, that various government agencies have plunged into the regular production of the sorts of futuristic scenarios that were once left to awed journalists, sci-fi writers, utopians, and cranks; and yet we, as a nation, find ourselves in a kind … [Read more...]

The news cycle spins and, having spun, moves on. Before a certain topic vanishes down the memory hole, I want to offer a work in progress that enlists recent events in a meditation on an ancient theme, to wit: These Spectacles of Feminine Abjection The nail … [Read more...]

Human society is journeying to a terrible place. — Arundhati Roy What’s the use of imaginative literature? None whatsoever. That is, it cannot be made to accomplish anything. Not, at any rate, if you view the single work or author under the sign of the … [Read more...]