Beyoncé collaborated with Forrest Gander, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012, to write a poem called “Bey the Light.” You can read that over here. (Bonus: This isn’t the first time Queen B has teamed up with a prominent writer.)
Bard-yoncé
Between Imitation and Plagiarism
"Language on a daily basis is being recycled. Our students are learning the language of the old and new masters; they are taking them in, mixing their words with the language they know, creating something new. Yet something there remains. Something familiar. Something like a forgotten first kiss. Like a well-known song sung in a different language." Ira Sukrungruang on "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Deep Reading and Mimicry, With an Ending that Totally Plagiarizes Wallace Stevens." After all, who doesn't want to plagiarize Wallace Stevens?
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A Proper Sociopath
Last week, I pointed readers to a recording of Benedict Cumberbatch on BBC Radio, reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Over at Slate, Rebecca Schuman explains why Cumberbatch is the story’s ideal reader, unpacking his “withering, perfectly enunciated deadpan.”
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Egan for President
“The power and meaning of the written word are central to the complexities we face today—both as a nation, and globally. To my mind, freedom of expression is a basic human right." Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan has been named the new president of PEN America. Pair with: our own Edan Lepucki's 2010 profile of Egan.
Asking To Be Born
"Every man or woman who is sane, every man or woman who has the feeling of being a person in the world, and for whom the world means something, every happy person, is in infinite debt to a woman." What would today be without a bit of Mother's Day-inspired Recommended Reading? Head over to Brain Pickings and learn why psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott believes that mothers are so vital.
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Cubans, Minimalists, and Surrealists, Oh My!
A three-course feast for your eyes, dear readers: vintage Cuban movie posters courtesy of Will Schofield; minimalist book covers courtesy of Julie Oreskovich and AbeBooks; and little-known sheet music illustrations courtesy of the great René Magritte.
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