Rick Moody Little, Brown ($24.95) by Eric Lorberer Zigzag, whirlpool, connect-the-dots: if you were to chart the progression of stories in Rick Moody's Demonology, you'd draw anything but a straight line. This restless energy seems fitting; as opposed to the steely precision of The Ice Storm or the epic thrust of Purple America, Moody's stories try out strategy after […]
WALKER EVANS: THE LOST WORK Arena Editions ($65) UNCLASSIFIED: A WALKER EVANS ANTHOLOGY Scalo ($39.95) by Kelly Everding Famous for his Farm Security Administration photographs of Depression-struck Southern folk, Walker Evans is the latest artist to be "retrospected," hailed as a pioneer and visionary of his time. Every scrap Evans ever touched now assumes a […]
Hydriotaphia & Other Plays Tony Kushner Theater Communications Group ($16.95) by Justin Maxwell Tony Kushner is a playwright who knows how to capitalize on his strengths: character, voice and theme. He knows how to make good theater with plays that are intelligent and entertaining. The pair of plays that constitute Angels in America (Millennium Approaches, for which […]
THE PILLAR OF FIRE Selected Poems Nikolay Gumilyov translated by Richard McKane introduced by Michael Basker Anvil Press / Dufour Editions ($22) SELECTED POEMS Nikolay Zabolotsky translated by Daniel Weissbort Introduction and Essays by Robin Milner-Gulland and Nikita Zabolotsky Carcanet Press ($25) by Christopher Mattison The Pillar of Fire—Richard McKane's translations of the early 20th-Century […]
edited by Gary Mex Glazner Manic D Press ($15) by Sean Thomas Dougherty In the late '80s, construction worker Marc Smith—now affectionately known as Slam Papi—began holding competitive poetry events at the Green Mill nightclub in Chicago. The poets would read and judges drawn randomly from the audience would give Olympic-style scoring on index cards. […]
Michael Davitt edited by Louis de Paor Cork University Press (14.95) by Thomas Rain Crowe In recent years, in many of the Celtic countries and/or colonies, there has been an indigenous language resurgence, none more evident than the "Innti" resurgence in Ireland which began in the '60s. Founder of the magazine INNTI, Michael Davitt and his […]
Louise Landes Levi Cool Grove Press ($10.95) by Michael Perkins Poetry is first a matter of breath. The words ride on the blessings of inspiration and suspiration. Then it is a matter of dance: the words strike our ears in rhythmic patterns that move us. But breath and rhythm are not alone sufficient to make […]
Valerio Magrelli Translated by Anthony Molino Holmes & Meier Publishers ($14.95) by Robert Zaller "I've seen things by a young poet that I like very much," the late Joseph Brodsky remarked some years ago. "His name is Magrelli." Valerio Magrelli, now in his mid-forties, is no longer a promising poet but an established one. His […]
Christine Hume Beacon Press ($15) by Laura Solomon Christine Hume's first book, Musca Domestica, introduces a fresh voice of ironic reason and billowing verse. The book's Latin title evokes a multiplicity of interpretations, mimicking the myriad of styles and flies that one will find inside. Entomologists will immediately identify "musca domestica" as the genus species for […]