A look back at the author photos that have filled the pages of Poetry magazine.
Family Album
The Literate Frontman
Some of Jeff Tweedy's favorite writers: "I like Henry Miller a lot. I like William H. Gass a lot. Donald Barthelme, Robert Coover, Kurt Vonnegut. . . . I used to walk into bookstores when I was a kid and get the stuff that looked the craziest and the most free." (In a Rolling Stone interview, unavailable online.)
●
●
Mark Twain Autobiography
Larry Rohter at the New York Times relates the darker, more cynical Mark Twain that has emerged through publication of the first volume of his unexpurgated autobiography, a century after his death: “One thing that gets Mark Twain going is his rage and resentment.”
●
●
Finding the Red Moon
ICYMI: Brad Listi interviewed Benjamin Percy as part of his Other People Podcast. Among other things, they talked about Percy’s new novel.
●
●
New from Beatrix Potter
A new story from Beatrix Potter will be published this September. A publisher discovered the almost-finished story, which features a cat in boots named Miss Catherine St Quintin, at the Victoria and Albert Museum archives. For a humorous take on modern children's books, check out our own Jacob Lambert’s series Are Picture Books Leading Our Children Astray?
Chasing After Literature
What is it like to work for a major book publisher? In an excerpt from the new reprint of her My Misspent Youth, Meghan Daum discusses the myth of the glamorous editorial job, one in which no time is wasted reading self-help books and unauthorized biographies of cable stars. As she explains it, “We’re secretaries fully versed in Derrida, receptionists who have read Proust in French.” Also check out our own Hannah Gersen's review of Daum’s latest essay collection The Unspeakable.
Nice Nonfiction
We've already decided that it's okay for fictional characters to be unlikable, but what about nonfiction writers? At the VQR blog, Jennifer Niesslein interviews essayists on whether their success is based on how amiable they are. "I think it’s ridiculous to expect to like someone who wrote a book you love, but the increasing visibility of writers on social media—who are expected to be the ambassadors of their books—amps up the pressure to be well-liked," Cheryl Strayed said.
●
●
An Egg with a Horse Inside
●
●
Galway Kinnell Passes Away
“To me, poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment.” Galway Kinnell, whose Selected Poems won a Pulitzer in 1983, passed away Tuesday.
●
●