The poet suggests his art’s highest calling isn’t truth-telling but stirring our empathic imagination.
Category: Books
A Poet of Isolation and Uncertainty
The poems in Jean Day’s Late Human carry a sense of having arrived at a moment when nothing feels quite right.
Cups of Nun Chai Sheds Light on the Kashmir Often Missing From Headlines
Alana Hunt’s emphasis on everyday experiences, shared over a cup of tea, counters the normalization of state violence.
The Fascinating Lives of Vincent van Gogh’s Three Sisters
“The Van Gogh Sisters” sheds light on Vincent van Gogh’s place within the family, including a complex relationship with his sisters.
Joan Mitchell, More Like a Poet
Curators and scholars have increasingly highlighted the importance of poetry to Mitchell’s art, though usually with so much circumspection that the link still remains obscure.
Michelangelo’s Last Two Decades Were His Busiest and Loneliest
William E. Wallace excavates a lesser-known but crucial final chapter of the artist’s approximately 75-year career.
Stories of Memory, Loss, and Paranoia
In Dorthe Nors’s minimalist fiction, other people are both an opportunity and a threat.
Hanif Abdurraqib on Black Performance and the Joy of Writing his New Book
The poet talks to Hyperallergic about A Little Devil in America and the process behind his new music podcast, Object of Sound.
New Hokusai Graphic Biography Shares Stories from His Extraordinary Life
At the age of 44, Hokusai took on an amazing challenge: a giant portrait of the founder of Zen Buddhism.
Analyzing the Biases of Western Art History With Hard Data
Careful and yet compellingly fresh in its approach, Painting by Numbers offers a new kind of methods book.
The One Book You Need to Read Right Now Is About Canadian Colonialism
“Before I Was a Critic I Was a Human Being” by Amy Fung is a collection of linked personal essays about language, displacement, and ownership — about being both an “outsider” and an “intruder.”
Giuseppe Ungaretti’s Wartime Poems
Ungaretti should be numbered among the ranks of such Great War poets as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Isaac Rosenberg.