Does poetry still matter? At NPR, Tracy K. Smith says yes.
Beautiful and Pointless?
Toni Morrison Changed the Literary Canon
Read our own Kaila Philo's essay on Toni Morrison's new book The Origin of Others and then pair it with Nell Irvin Painter's reflection on 'Toni Morrison’s Radical Vision of Otherness.' "Morrison’s history of Othering represents an intervention in history on several fronts. Although the theme of desegregating the literary canon reappears in The Origin of Others, times have changed since Playing in the Dark. Surely thanks to the more multicultural, multiracial canon that Morrison helped foster, no respectable version of American literature today omits writers of color."
Wallace’s Former Student
David Foster Wallace's former student, Adam Plunkett, recounts studying with the polite, Midwestern, sometimes embarrassing professor whom he knew as Dave during the spring of his junior year at Pomona College, where Wallace worked until his death that September.
“Because with Helen DeWitt, everything is physical.”
Lightning Rods author (and occasional Millions commenter) Helen DeWitt has a story entitled "Recovery" featured in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading series. Don’t miss the “single sentence animation” video for it, either.
Have Homer, Will Travel
We're super jazzed about a new (and free!) app called ToposText that pairs the entirety of ancient Greek and Roman texts with GIS mapping data, allowing travelers to pull up history's classics in the places in which they were written. Developed by a relative of our own Lydia Kiesling, ToposText correlates to a map of nearly 6,000 ancient places and includes 570 ancient texts in English translation, with hyperlinks to the Greek or Latin original. And for a more modern context to the Homeric epic The Odyssey, consider our piece comparing its journey to that of Toni Morrison's own classic Beloved.
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The Reluctant Actor
While Liz & Dick might have failed to live up to our campy expectations, you can still get your Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor fix from the recently-published Richard Burton Diaries.
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100 Plays for the First (Trump) Hundred Days
Suzan-Lori Parks wrote a play every day during Trump's first 100 days as president which will be published next year as 100 Plays for the First Hundred Days. She talks to American Theatre about why she decided to undertake such a project, how difficult the process was and the importance of showing up and being present. Includes excerpts from the book.
Tuesday New Release Day: Whitehead, Jin, Gray
Colson Whitehead's zombie thriller Zone One hits shelves today, as does Ha Jin's Nanjing Requiem. Also out is The Journals of Spalding Gray.