Frolic and Detour contains a few poems that I judge to be instant classics of English-language poetry.
Books
Book Review: “Blowout” — A Devastating Vision of What is at Stake
This is a brilliant book that comes at a propitious time in our country’s history.
Book Review: “Irving Berlin: New York Genius” — A Significant Life
Biographer James Kaplan was aided by the assistance of Irving Berlin’s two elder daughters, and that makes this biography particularly valuable.
Poetry Review: “If Men, Then” — Verse on Present Day Firing Lines
Because Eliza Griswold’s poems often take place in war zones, she’s always provocative — even when she is tendentious.
Author Interview: “The Cult of Trump” — Deprogramming the GOP
When someone recommended to Steven Hassan he write a volume called The Cult of Trump, “it just seemed like the most important book I could write, frankly.”
Book Review: Biographies of Lou Reed and Warren Zevon — Satisfying Lives of Singular Talents
Two recent biographies take very different approaches as they revel in the wild lives and examine the distinctive songs of two of rock music’s most enigmatic figures: Lou Reed and Warren Zevon.
Author Interview: Pulitzer Prize Winner David W. Blight — Speaking of Frederick Douglass in the Witch City
“You can read Frederick Douglass forever and still just encounter new things, new ideas, new passages, new phrases. He’s that kind of writer. It’s like reading Emerson or even Shakespeare.”
Book Review: “Vernon Subutex 1” — Rock and Roll, Drugs, and Sex Among the Over-The-Hill Gang
Virginie Despentes novel reads like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia mashed with Don Quixote and set in contemporary Paris.
Arts Commentary: “Counterculture in Boston 1968 – 1980s” — High and Heady Days
About the post-Reagan era, Boston Phoenix and Boston After Dark editor, Arnie Reisman, observes: “Everything went to sleep, and while we were sleeping, the Republican Party grew six more heads.”
Book Review: “On Fire” — An Optimistic Take on Climate Change
In this book, Naomi Klein shines a light on the path to a politically and economically just model of sustainability.