James Kaelen’s Best of 2009
When John asked me to compose some sort of “best of” list for 2009, I thought immediately of film. Though I’ve read voraciously this year, most of the books I’ve consumed were written in the 20th...
View ArticleGuest Post, By Kyle Minor: A Sentence About a Sentence I Love
“They came like a caravan of carnival folk up through the swales of broomstraw and across the hill in the morning sun, the truck rocking and pitching in the ruts and the musicians on chairs in the...
View ArticleA Sentence About a Sentence I Love: An Anthology, of Sorts
A few months ago, in April, to be exact, I started a series of posts entitled “A Sentence About a Sentence I Love” with a sentence about one of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s magnificent sentences. This...
View ArticleBest of 2011, Part 1
A few days ago, I reached out to writers and other artists across the country to provide me with a list of some of their favorite books, music, films, events, moments, or whatever from 2011, which...
View ArticleKyle Minor’s “Literary Pillars”
1. American Pastoral, Philip Roth 2. “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” Katherine Anne Porter 3. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson 4. Bats Out of Hell, Barry Hannah 5. Selected Poems, Wislawa Szymborska 6. Child of...
View ArticleBig Other’s Birthday Tribute to William H. Gass, 2012
Photo by Frank Di Piazza It’s probably too easy a move to begin my very brief remarks about Gass’s use of architecture as a metaphor by trotting out the old horse of a quote about language being the...
View ArticleRecent Literary Disputes
I have to admit that neither Christian Lorentzen’s nor Kyle Minor’s respective takes on Alice Munro’s stories and books have altered my own criticism of her work, but they have inspired me, at least...
View ArticleFrom the Archives: A Sentence About a Sentence I Love: An Anthology, of Sorts
Note: This was originally published November 10, 2010. A few months ago, in April, to be exact, I started a series of posts entitled “A Sentence About a Sentence I Love” with a sentence about one of...
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