American

Poetry Review: Bill Knott’s American Surrealism – A Magic Carpet Ride

July 22, 2017
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Perhaps what makes bill Knott’s poetry so addictive is his uncanny ability to turn language inside out.

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Film Review: “Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead”—The Rise and Fall of the National Lampoon

October 12, 2015
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Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead is mostly a straight-ahead telling of the vivid life of the National Lampoon.

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Commentary/CD Reviews: Recent Symphonic Recordings From Boston Orchestras

May 19, 2015
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A series of new and recent recordings by Boston orchestras demonstrate that, in the right hands, symphonic music since 1945 remains alive and well, still powerful, fresh, and vibrant.

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Fuse Theater Review: “Mothers & Sons” — Surveying, With Understanding, the Battles Ahead

May 16, 2015
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Mothers & Sons raises important questions about struggle, acceptance, and love, dramatizing battles that are still being waged.

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Theater Commentary/Review: On American Stages — No Politics, Please

March 14, 2015
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In 1939, Clifford Odets wrote that ‘we are living at a time when new art works should shoot bullets.” Fat chance of any shots coming from our voluntarily disarmed theaters.

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Book Review: Merritt Tierce’s Smart and Ruthless “Love Me Back” — The Way We Live Now

October 13, 2014
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So much of what this novel has to say feels bracing and necessary. This is where a good part of America lives—dangling over a chasm.

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Visual Arts Review: “Quilts and Color” — Far From Folk and Perhaps Beyond Art

April 16, 2014
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Far from being the cool, detached, and cerebral creations of the color field artists, these quilts, imagined in their intended context, are deeply personal, sensuous, and alive.

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Book Review: “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.” — Brooklyn Fiction That is a Breed Apart

October 30, 2013
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The moral urgency and the humane distribution of Adelle Waldman’s authorial sympathy are evident everywhere in “The Love Affair of Nathaniel P.”

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Book Review: “The Woman Who Lost Her Soul” — A Lengthy Tale of Innocence Betrayed

October 21, 2013
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Despite his weakness for overwriting, Bob Shacochis has a good and sad story to tell, and he gets through it with a degree of mastery.

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Book Review: Denise Levertov — More Than a Famous Antiwar Poet

May 22, 2013
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This meticulous biography of Anglo-American poet Denise Levertov is the labor of many years and of deep reflection and care.

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