Recent Entries:

On January 23, 2012, Reuters reported that 150 ancient Jewish scrolls and documents had been discovered in Afghanistan “and most likely smuggled” to private dealers in London. Dating from the 11th century, the cache’s commercial records appear to be written in a Judeo-Persian language associated with merchants who worked the Silk Road trade.

Book of the Given, poems by Rusty Morrison (Noemi Press)

Although Pierre Guyotat’s Coma comes packaged between two fiery anti-memoir statements -- by Gary Indiana in his introduction and by translator Noura Wedell in an afterword – it is nevertheless a personal narrative. But conscience compels it to question and reemploy the genre’s conventions.

Summing up why Dante’s Commedia was neglected between the Renaissance and the Romantics, Robert Lowell said that changes in literary styles had eclipsed Dante’s status as a forerunner. “Something too in his character must have awed and scared men off by its arrogance,” he wrote.

Welcome to the Seawall’s annual fall poetry feature. Below, twenty poets write briefly on some of their favorite new and recent collections. This multi-poet/title feature is posted here annually in April and December.

The commentary includes:

David Rivard on Helsinki by Peter Richards (Action Books)
Hank Lazer on Yingelishi by Jonathan Stalling (Counterpath Press)

Starting with Ways of Seeing in 1972, John Berger has written out of wonderment about art making and expression. While most art historians and critics make discoveries and then engrave them into books, Berger’s creative essays give the sense of discovering as they proceed.