Lyric Prose – Page 2 – On the Seawall

Lyric Prose

Commentary |May 7, 2024

on Phantom Pain Wings, poems by Kim Hyesoon

reviewed by David Woo

“Written after the death of Kim’s actual father, followed ‘three months and ten days later’ by her mother, Phantom Pain Wings delineates a terminal world where existence continues despite the absence of everything.”
Commentary |May 7, 2024

on The Art of Dying: Writings 2019-2022 by Peter Schjeldahl

reviewed by Christoph Irmscher

“Schjeldahl, for the benefit of his devoted audience, demystified both art and writing about art. ‘Each of us,’ he commented in 2004, after visiting a Vermeer exhibit, ‘is born with a capacity to see and feel intensely and with precision.'”
Commentary |May 7, 2024

on Life on Earth, poems by Dorianne Laux

reviewed by Michael Collins

“Laux sees into yet unperceived life within our relationships with products, inventions, and pop culture, as well as the flexible boundaries we share with myth, poetry, and the unwitnessed aspects of our own lives.”
Commentary |May 7, 2024

on The Silver Bone, a novel by Andrey Kurkov, translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk

reviewed by Yelena Furman

“A retro detective novel suggests a historical mystery, set in a particular period that provides a distinctive backdrop to the action … but Kurkov undercuts the expectation that the detective plot must be the central element in a detective novel.”

Lyric Prose

Lyric Prose |September 13, 2022

“a treat”

lyric prose by Alina Rios

“We played together until she was called home for dinner. She told me to visit her any time and gave me the number of her flat, pointing to the door that led to her section of units.”

Lyric Prose |May 17, 2022

“The Enchantment of Death: Briar Rose”

a lyric essay by Franca Mancinelli, translated from the Italian by John Taylor

“Every child who learns a story by heart learns his or her own story. Unbeknownst to the child, it speaks inside her, through the forms of the fairy tale, the life knotted in her blood that will dissolve over the years.”

Lyric Prose |April 12, 2022

“The Smell of a Peeled Orange from Across the Room”

lyric prose by Matthew Lippman

“… she told me I was a stupid boy and that meant that there would be no other night like this for me and I couldn’t remember my name but her name was Sally …”

Lyric Prose |April 12, 2022

“Four Interiors,” “Distance Prayer,” “Mala” & “John Donne: A Closet Drama”

lyric prose and poetry by Anne Myles

“She would scratch my back and shoulders lightly. She would call me Angelique. We were close and we were not. The world was full of things we could not say, so many I barely noticed them.”