Commentary |
on France, Story of a Childhood, an autofiction by Zahia Rahmani
Zahia Rahmani was born in Algeria in 1962 just as that country’s eight-year war of independence from France was ending. Her father was counted among the “Harkis” – the 75,000 Algerians who fought alongside the French against their own nationalist countrypeople. Literally overnight, the French crept away leaving 20,000 Harkis to be pulled from their…
Commentary |
on Dark At The Crossing, a novel by Elliot Ackerman
For marketing’s sake, Elliot Ackerman’s second novel, Dark At The Crossing, has been described as a current day war story about the tumult in Syria with a love interest. But Ackerman’s actual subject is the making of choices under dire circumstances. How a choice may trigger betrayal or the recognition of one’s illusions or self-satisfaction…
Commentary |
“Schwierige Zeiten” / “Difficult Times”
Difficult Times / Schwierige Zeiten Standing at my desk I see the elder tree in the garden through the window And make out something red in it, something black And instantly recall the elders Of my Augsburg childhood. Then for several moments I seriously deliberate Whether to go to the table For my glasses,…
Commentary |
Non-Fiction: on Italy and Cigarettes, a Poet in Stalin’s World, and the Afterlife of Elvis
Fumo: Italy’s Love Affair with the Cigarette by Carl Ipsen Comrade Huppert: A Poet in Stalin’s World by George Huppert The Death and Resurrection of Elvis Presley by Ted Harrison * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *…
Commentary |
on Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast by Megan Marshall
In 1973 Elizabeth Bishop wrote a blurb for Sandra McPherson’s first book Radiation. She described her former student’s poetry as “a delight and refreshment in the tedium of irony, confession and cuteness of contemporary verse.” According to Brett C. Miller’s 1993 biography of Bishop, she was “appalled by her students’ emphasis on self-expression over craft…
Commentary |
on One Toss of the Dice: The Incredible Story of How a Poem Made Us Modern by R. Howard Bloch
On the death of Stéphane Mallarmé in 1898, 22-year old Paul Valéry wrote an homage to the poet who had pointed the way to new possibilities for poetry. “Je sera la tombe de ton ombre pensive,” he wrote, “I will be the tomb of your pensive shadow.” Fifty-one years later at age 73, a year…
Commentary |
on Poetry by Amanda Nadelberg and Ruth Ellen Kocher
Songs From a Mountain by Amanda Nadelberg (Coffee House Press) Third Voice by Ruth Ellen Kocher (Tupelo Press) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Lately I’ve returned to the fiction of Iris Murdoch.…
Commentary |
on The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art, by Sebastian Smee
I was going to begin by saying that if you are a writer or artist, it is impossible to read Sebastian Smee’s The Art of Rivalry without reflecting on your professional antagonisms. But of course in any profession, especially among its innovators, there is always competition, scorekeeping, come-uppance, and counterattack. This is a book for…
Commentary |
on Memoirs of a Polar Bear, a novel by Yoko Tawada, translated by Susan Bernofsky
In 2002, a collection of stories by Yoko Tawada called Überseezungen was published in Germany. The term was coined by Tawada from the words Übersee (“overseas”) and Zungen (“tongues”). In an interview, she relates that as a child she “found it fun to speak a jumble of words, sheer nonsense, and make grown-ups laugh.” Her…
Commentary |
on Am I Alone Here? by Peter Orner
“For a long time I thought reading would somehow make me a better writer,” says Peter Orner, one of our better writers. “Now I see how ludicrous this is. All the glorious Chekhov in thirteen volumes won’t help me write a sentence that breathes. That comes from somewhere else, somewhere out in the world, where…
Commentary |
on Almost Nothing To Be Scared Of, poems by David Clewell
David Clewell has never been hesitant about spelling things out – what he sees, what he loves, how he feels and how we should feel about how he feels. He may be America’s most reliably engaging poet of unabashedly giving a damn. He gives praise and advice. No coyness, no mistaking who’s talking to whom.…
Commentary |
on The Crime of Jean Genet by Dominique Eddé, translated by Andrew Rubens and Ros Schwartz
The French novelist and activist Dominique Eddé met Jean Genet in 1975 when she was 22 years old and he was 65. They were introduced by the French-Moroccan novelist Tahar Ben Jelloun. Eddé was born in Beirut – and at the moment she met Genet, the Lebanese civil war had just begun. The impression Genet…
Commentary |
on Shelter In Place, a novel by Alexander Maksik
In a brief essay on Eudora Welty’s collection The Bride of the Innisfallen, Peter Orner asserts that “The Burning” “is the story that comes closest to failure, and so the writer loves it all the more.” When a writer wades into the making with unknowingness, the outcome is in doubt. A residue of obliviousness remains…
Commentary |
on Supplication: Selected Poems by John Wieners and My Blue Piano by Else Lasker-Schüler
Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners (Wave Books) and Stars Seen in Person: Selected Journals by John Wieners (City Lights Books) My Blue Piano, poems by Else Lasker-Schüler, translated from the German by Brooks Haxton (Syracuse University Press) * * * One of my daily walking routes takes me through…
Commentary |
Nine Poets Recommend New & Recent Titles
Welcome back to The Seawall’s semi-annual poetry feature. This season, nine poets write briefly on some of their favorite recently published titles. This multi-poet/title feature is posted here in April and November. Scroll down to read. The commentary includes: Daisy Fried on Wannabe Hoochie Mama of Realities’ Red Dress Code: New & Selected Poems by…