Tag Archives: Winter 2019

What Shirt Color is Left?

Fado, Salazar, Pessoa, and Saramago A Report from Lisbon’s DIS/QUIET Literary Program by Mike Schneider Lisbon, aka Lisboa, lies at the expansive mouth of the Tagus River—one of the best big-ship harbors in the world. It has been home to a sea-faring culture since before the Middle Ages and to ship captains like Vasco da […]

Things That Go

Laura Eve Engel Octopus Books ($17) by Greg Bem The first book of poetry by Laura Eve Engel, Things That Go, is on its surface framed around the biblical tale of Lot’s Wife, who infamously was turned into a pillar of salt as she looked back upon the city of Sodom. The story is both […]

Writing Sontag's Life and Work:
an interview with Benjamin Moser

Interviewed by Allan Vorda Benjamin Moser was born and raised in Houston. He graduated from Brown University and received his Ph.D. from Utrecht University. Moser’s first book was a biography of the Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector titled Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector (Oxford University Press, 2012); he subsequently edited a series of […]

Shit I’ve Cried About

Volumes One Through Five Smeyer Meekling Press ($15) by Michael Workman Originally published by the author as a zine from 2016 through 2018, Shit I’ve Cried About is that special kind of micro-press release the world desperately needs. Centering on queer love and offering an outline of the struggle for visibility in a nihilistic culture, […]

Doomstead Days

Brian Teare Nightboat Books ($17.95) by John Bradley “I touch through rhythm, / notebook open as I walk, / strike inflecting script // with wobble & slant,” writes Brain Teare in his poem “Toxics Release Inventory (Essay on Man),” describing his writing-while-walking composition method. It’s hard not to think of Henry David Thoreau while reading […]

Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Schlitzie the Pinhead

Bill Griffith Abrams Comic Arts ($24.99) by Christopher Luna For half a century, cartoonist Bill Griffith has thrilled many and confounded others with his surreal comics featuring an absurdist commentary on the chaotic ebb and flow of pop culture. Griffith’s memoir of his mother’s secret romance with a cartoonist, Invisible Ink (Fantagraphics Books, 2015)—a sweeping, […]

Utopian Trace: An Oral Presentation

Peter Lamborn Wilson Logosophia Books ($16) by Richard Kostelanetz Peter Lamborn Wilson first entered my mind a quarter-century ago when he broadcast two-hour monologues on various subjects weekly over the local Pacifica radio station. What caught my attention was not only his verbal facility and impressive learning, but the depth and originality of his anarchism. […]

“A very full, large,
and luminous space”:
the poetry of Amanda Berenguer

an interview with Kristin Dykstra and Kent Johnson Interviewed by Peter Boyle Born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1921, Amanda Berenguer is among the many outstanding 20th-century poets from Uruguay and Argentina. Alongside such writers as Olga Orozco, Alejandra Pizarnik, Marosa di Giorgio, and Silvia Guerra, Berenguer is part of a constellation of poets surely deserving […]

The Enchanted Ring:
A Romance of Chivalry

Philothée O’Neddy Translated by Brian Stableford Snuggly Books ($12) by Olchar E. Lindsann Rare would be the reader who recognizes the absurd name Philothée O’Neddy, exclaiming, “O’Neddy in translation? At last!” Ever since his own day he has been not only a footnote in literary history, but a footnote to other footnotes such as Petrus […]