Editors Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue are not trying to teach us how to read the poems.
Theater Review: A Second Look at the “Confederacy”
The humor of Toole’s novel, its enjoyment of puncturing surfaces and pretensions, has been reduced to punch-line humor and one-liners.
Film Review: The Amy Winehouse Documentary — Hagiography in the Age of Reality TV
Amy Winehouse’s death was certainly a tragedy, but not one that moves us to pity and terror in its retelling as a morality tale spun from home movies.
Book Review: Miranda July’s “The First Bad Man” — Transforming the Ordinary into the Extraordinary
Miranda July’s originality of vision rests on an acute (and astute) awareness of the cosmic and the quotidian.
Book Review: Donald Antrim’s “The Emerald Light in the Air” — Unabashedly Gorgeous
The Emerald Light in the Air is important reading for those interested in the state of the American short story, or of American fiction in general.
Book News: “The Old Priest” — A Finalist for the 2014 PEN/Hemingway Award
Arts Fuse writer Anthony Wallace talks about the latest accolade for his short story collection “The Old Priest” — it was a finalist for the 2014 PEN/Hemingway Award.
Visual Arts Commentary: In a Room with Rothko
The Arts Fuse is pleased to announce that “In a Room With Rothko,” by Anthony Wallace, posted last year, was awarded a Pushcart Prize Special Mention in the Pushcart Prize XXXVIII Best of the Small Presses (Norton & Co, 2013).
Jazz CD Review: A Song Cycle “For Langston”
For Langston fails on its own terms, which is to produce a moving, insightful, and in some sense accurate interpretation of the poetry of Langston Hughes.
Book Review: Denis Johnson’s Plays in Verse — The Art of Talking with the Devil
One answer to the question of “Why two plays in verse?” might be that Denis Johnson is a writer relentlessly in pursuit of new forms, and new formal challenges—a literary daredevil always looking for a new vehicle to take for a thrill ride.
Book Review: An Admirable Look at the Art of Robert Frost
THE ART OF ROBERT FROST helped me get closer to the poems and in doing so helped me get closer to the poet.