Books
Two Poets Search for Home
In their latest volumes, poets Youmna Chlala and Chris Nealon confront the notion of home and the emotional challenges of our own tentative, pre- or post-apocalyptic moment.
Mark Scroggins
Books
Poetry as a Blowtorch of Protest
While despondency and madness appear aplenty in Sean Bonney’s writing, its keynote is pure, hard rage.
Books
An Evolution of Style in Three Poets
I love discovering new voices, but there’s much to be said for following poets over the course of their careers, watching their styles evolve, their attentions shift.
Books
The Polymathic Mind of John Ruskin
Ruskin was captivated with more than just art and architecture. He wrote at some length on geology, mythology, crystallography, ornithology, herpetology — and who knows what else.
Art
Testosterone Rules at the Metropolitan Museum's Rock 'N' Roll Show
Will rock music ever be able entirely to extricate itself from a profoundly gendered symbolism?
Art
N. C. Wyeth's Artistic Aspirations
Illustration provided Wyeth a very comfortable living, but did not satisfy his deep ambition to be taken seriously in the art world.
Art
Walt Whitman's Sensuality and Self-Promotion
Whitman’s poetry feels inseparable from his physical presence, his body itself, as does the work of few other poets.
Books
Geoffrey Hill's Darkly Luminous Poetry
Hill worked on The Book of Baruch by the Gnostic Justin for several years before his death, planning no conclusion; the book would simply consist of as many sections as he had completed in his life.
Art
An Exhibition Brings Tolkien's Vision Down to Earth
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth tries to wrest Middle-earth back to its source: J. R. R. Tolkien’s writing-desk.