Books
In D. A. Powell’s latest volume, the dominant landscape is that of the wasting body, which is crisscrossed, investigated, confronted, and made useful again as a map in the hands of raw youth.
“Fairness and Freedom” is a cultural/political/social history of the United States and New Zealand in one volume. To the general reader’s likely question, “Why would anyone put the two in one book?”, author’s answer and binding theme is that both former British colonies are open societies with liberal democratic systems, but with a difference.
William Kentridge spoke of the value of using a mirror to re-learn what he already knew how to do; the clear implication was that we are daily surrounded by mirror-images that we do not see for themselves but that hold the potential to alter our relationships to our tools and to our visions.
For the reader who is not already a William Carlos Williams enthusiast, the biography provides a good corrective to the Norton Anthology picture of Williams as the poet of tiny images, of plums and red wheelbarrows and fire engines with big gold letters.
A new Haggadah has recently been published, the “New American Haggadah,” edited by Jonathan Safran Foer and translated by Nathan Englander. It’s getting a lot of attention and some criticism from “elders.” But maybe the Haggadah is beside the point. . .
The strength of the poetry is the ambiance it creates. Narrative is almost totally submerged in imagery, which may seem natural enough in verse but often is not the case.
“The O’Briens” is a good sink-your-teeth-into read that explores the capricious nature of destiny with grace and humor and shows great compassion for its characters.
For William Kentridge history accrues, falls dead, is born, washes up, piles up, and may be artfully arranged, but the most powerful place that this accretion might happen is in the artist’s studio, which is a metonym for the human mind.
Even though she covers herself with demurely crossed arms, her gaze could burn holes through fabric. If it looks like the artist had a predilection for strong, bosomy girls, well, there’s a reason for that.
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