“I’ll die soon, said / the boy to the bird.”

If you’re a professor or mentor, it’s the time of year you should expect to be hit up for recommendation letters. You can find inspiration in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s recommendation letter for Walt Whitman, when the latter was seeking government employment despite his controversial poetry. “He is known to me as a man of strong original genius, combining, with marked eccentricities, great powers & valuable traits of character: a self-relying large-hearted man, much beloved by his friends.” Even if the government didn’t like Whitman’s work, we do; read our own Michael Bourne’s essay on the power of Whitman’s poetry.

Blood-Drenched Beard, a new novel by Daniel Galera, is poised to spark a newfound interest in Brazilian literature abroad, argues Chris Frey. In The Globe and Mail, he writes that Galera has forged an original voice, one recalling Borges and Murakami but still distinctly his own. For more on the book, you could read our review.