Words and images by Jasun Horsley I recently had a podcast discussion with the author Jonathan Lethem. This connection has probably meant more to me than previous connections. For one thing, it’s … [Read more...]
Remembering poet David Gitin
It is with a numbed sense of great personal loss that I report the passing on June 27th of David Gitin: poet, educator, and polymath. As Gloria Avner lovingly phrased it (his long-lost teenage … [Read more...]
An interview with Argentinian poet, publisher and translator, Juan Arabia
Juan Arabia (b.1983 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a poet, translator and literary critic. He studied Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires and is now the director and publisher of the … [Read more...]
That Deadly Lord Douglas: Oscar Wilde and De Profundis
It is hard to read the letter published as De Profundis, with its account of Wilde’s disastrous life with Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas, without laughing. From his cell in Reading Gaol, Wilde … [Read more...]
Infinite Jesting: On the Unbearable Lightness of Our Time
We have, it seems, fallen into the ticklish grip of a cultural and existential order that has become virtually impossible to buck—humor. This is especially the case in literature. Rare is the work … [Read more...]
Attempt to Hear All the Voices: On the Nature of Essay
An essay is an entity in itself that moves, explores, sometimes discovers and enlightens, explains, clarifies, and attempts to relate in some way to the world outside of it. An essay moves on its own … [Read more...]
A Consideration of Borges’ Poetics
I read Jorge Luis Borges' This Craft of Verse in one sitting. It is a collection of six essays originally given as lectures at Harvard University in 1967-1968. The tone is easy and conversational. … [Read more...]
Fully Aboard the Flesh Wagon: Tin House Writers Workshop, Summer 2014
About a week before his fortieth birthday, virgin poet Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881) recorded in his journal that he had “received a woman’s favors” at last. His world was not rocked. … [Read more...]
The Consequences of Violence
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. —Oscar Wilde I’ve found it true in personal experience that being a target of … [Read more...]
Raskolnikov and the Peanut: Mirror Neurons & the Arcane Art of Writing – Jasun Horsley
“Don’t scorn the word: Poets, the world is noisy and silent, only God speaks.” —Antonio Machado Pornography, Shamanic Healing, & Language-Based Reality “Writing is a socially acceptable form … [Read more...]
“Said God, Scratching His Naked Belly in a Kitchen”: Charles Bukowski to Robert Bly
Unlike any other time in U.S. history, the 1950s and ‘60s saw the emergence of multiple literary movements stoked by a flourishing small-press culture. Popular magazines of the time included the New … [Read more...]
Nature As Muse: The World of Fine Writing
The world is never “too much with us,” said Wordsworth, but not the wild glories, which he treasured, too. Natural gifts reflecting the gifts of the gods, or of Darwin’s insights and those of the … [Read more...]
Joerg Haeske’s Ten Favorite Books
Joerg Haeske, author of Anywhere Road: Retracing Jack Kerouac, shares his top ten list, in no particular order: Jack Kerouac: The Dharma Bums (a tough one to choose between that and On The Road, … [Read more...]
Linda Lenhoff’s Top Ten Books
Linda Lenhoff (@LindaLatte) is a reader and novelist. She tells us she can't bring herself to order the books, so here they are in an unordered list, with her thoughts on some of them. Independence … [Read more...]
Wordsworth and the Beats: The Longevity of Influence
Although William Wordsworth once stated that he was “not a critic” and, in fact, “set little value upon the art” (Leitch 556), in his “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” he nevertheless proposed and … [Read more...]
The Necessity of Tragedy—How What Goethe Played with is Still Entirely Relevant
One may say that the benefit of tragedy is that one gets to witness man self-destruct without having to self-destruct on one’s own. Lessons learned without having to go through the actual act of the … [Read more...]
Yannis Livadas: A double interview
These interviews were conducted for Quorum Magazine, which is based in Croatia. This is their first appearance in English. Interview No. 1 Tomica Bajsic interviewed the poet Yannis Livadas for … [Read more...]
Calling on Paul Bowles: Tangier, Morocco, August 1979
Calling on Paul Bowles Tangier, Morocco, August 1979 ”There it is,” someone says, and in the darkness, in the distance, you can see Tangier sprawled across several hills, a white city … [Read more...]
Revenge of the Imagist Socialist Poetry
We are the revenge of all oppressed, despised, ignored, exploited, beaten, insulted, neglected, abused, molested humans in the world as being fighters for their rights with our poems and essays. We … [Read more...]
Is Andy Kaufman Still Alive? The Evidence
My name is Jack Bristow -- AKA, the guy who was interviewed by the Huffington Post about Andy Kaufman being alive and well in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Though the interview took place 2013, May 15, I … [Read more...]