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Author Archives: JMN
The Gargoyles’ Grin
In 1915, Wallace Stevens offered Harriet Monroe, founder of Poetry (the magazine), several poems that included Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock. “She returned them… finding them ‘recondite, erudite, provocatively obscure… all with ‘a kind of modern-gargoyle grin to them,’” writes Stevens … Continue reading
Poetry and Drawing
The essay is “On Drawing” by poet Michael Burkard (Poetry*, July/August 2020). Mary Hackett was “a self-taught artist who spent much of the year in Provincetown [Massachusetts].” Michael Burkard writes of striking up a friendship with her while on an … Continue reading
Posted in Quotations
Tagged art, drawing, language, literature, poetry, rhetoric, style, writing
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Prosodic Moments in Poeisis
In English, the difficulty of perceiving even brief isosyllabic lines as rhythmically equivalent is aggravated by the inordinate power of stressed syllables… The mashup of mystification about versifying that’s available online furnishes what I call Prosodic Moments — when phraseology … Continue reading
Poetry Frisson
The poem is “That Other” by Joyce Carol Oates (Poetry*, July/August 2020). Reading this miniature is like encountering a firm pack of beach after jogging on dry sand. The poem is accessible while allusive, and wry. It crystallizes for me, … Continue reading
The Pain of Poetry
My correspondent in life of the mind states my state of mind neatly and plainly in the matter of phosphorescent gargoyle exhalations swaddled in effulgent gossamer — I mean to say prosody. Now I remember why I, and doubtless others … Continue reading
Posted in Anthology
Tagged criticism, culture, doggerel, French, language, linguistics, literature, poetry, rhetoric, style, translation, writing
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‘Kind of Enough’
If most of what [Evan] Kinori makes costs a lot (shirts start at $285; pants at $365; and jackets at $525), it is in part because they are produced in such limited quantities… “My design ethos is basically geared toward … Continue reading
Finicky Finger-Wag
Until then, many are relishing in his struggles and those of his team: The Astros, who reached the World Series last season, were 12-10 and battling for second place in the American League West just over a third of the … Continue reading
Tweet Storm Testicle Taint
Spanish leftist leader Pablo Iglesias praised U.S. television writer David Simon’s latest series “The Plot Against America” on Twitter, saying the series showed that fascism was never far away. Iglesias’s tweet provoked “a flurry of responses in praise of and … Continue reading
‘A Difference That Adds Up’
In 2019, the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London hosted the first international retrospective of Ms. Hurtado’s art, “I Live I Die I Will Be Reborn.” Reviewing it in The Guardian, Adrian Searle wrote, “Vitality, tenderness, spookiness, intimacy, gawkiness, sexiness, subtlety, … Continue reading
Posted in Commentary, Quotations
Tagged art, language, painting, rhetoric, society, style
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Shackles
Jacob Blake, the Black resident of Kenosha, Wis., who was shot by a white police officer, is shackled to his hospital bed [my bolding]… [He] remains paralyzed from the waist down… The police were arresting Mr. Blake on Sunday afternoon … Continue reading →