I only had 30 minutes to speak to poet Carl Phillips, which was just enough time to access his worldview, yet a woefully insufficient amount of time to truly get at the thickness of his poetry. It was by far the friendliest interview I have ever conducted. Phillips was flexible…
Tag: Poetry
Summer Reading List for People Who Love to be Sad by Kate Monica
“’I don’t like happy people,’ Andrew said.” —Tao Lin, Eeeee Eee Eeeee Are you looking for a light summer read to perfectly complement a languorous afternoon on the beach working on your tan? Then this list probably isn’t a great fit. Just kidding. Sort of. You can read these books…
Make It A Big Deal: An Interview with Matvei Yankelevich by Carleton Whaley (2016)
Matvei Yankelevich is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Ugly Duckling Presse, which he started in the late 1990’s with a group of friends. He designs and edits books for UDP, curates the Eastern European Poets Series (since 2002), and co-edits 6×6 magazine (since 2000). He shares duties as UDP’s Co-Executive Director with…
Exigency in Writing: CAConrad in Providence by Nicholas DiBenedetto
“A security guard asked, ‘What the fuck are YOU DOING?’ I replied, ‘I’M A POLLINATOR, I’M A POLLINATOR!!’” — CAConrad “Security Cameras and Flowers Dreaming the Elevation Allegiance” On the evening of Friday, April 22, I found myself driving a car full of undergraduates to Ada Books in Providence, Rhode…
Deciphering DIAGRAM with Ander Monson by Allison McLellan and Alexandra Cichon (2016)
DIAGRAM is an online magazine that, as its name suggests, stands out in the unique use of obscure diagrams and schematics accompanying written works displayed in refreshing, innovative ways, including fiction, poetry, and comics. Although the magazine stands out by charging new ground, I find I cannot try to sum…
Revolutionizing Literature: Literary Magazines and the Digital Age by Alexandra Cichon
In the wee hours of the morning, with the DIAGRAM magazine tab open in my browser, I surf the magazine’s current issue, absorbing each pixel of avant-garde poems and clicking rapidly between diagrams. Besides my unequivocal love for the concept DIAGRAM pushes—“odd but good”— oozing from the crisp white and…
An ode to Jim Harrison By Sten Spinella
Jim Harrison died on Saturday, March 26th, 2016. Don’t let the innocuous name fool you; Harrison was an extraordinary man. For those who watch the show Californication, consider Harrison, who spent a portion of his career in Hollywood working on screenplays, a more talented Hank Moody with a blind left…
MFA—Recipe For Success or Disaster? By Kate Monica
“Does any (MFA) program really improve anybody, as much as simply identifying them? And, after identifying them, not ruining them?” —Chang-rae Lee, On Such A Full Sea Getting an MFA seems like the natural progression for any English major looking to take a swing at making a career of writing….
Francis Ponge: Things, Doodads, and Whatchamacallits by Nicholas DiBenedetto
*Author’s Note: I’d like to thank Darcie Dennigan for introducing me to Francis Ponge and his poems, and Kerry Carnahan, Shannon Hearn, Emily Kraus, Erin Lynn, Eleanor Reeds, Matthew Ryan, and Brian Sneeden for engaging in an insightful discussion of selected works to help me form opinions on, and better…
Remembering Robert Frost by Emily Cantor
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life — It goes on.” —Robert Frost Today marks the 142nd birthday of the American poet Robert Lee Frost. Though Frost is most famous for his depictions of rural New England life, he was actually born in San Francisco….
