Need some more poetry in your life? Catch up on the year’s best collections. At Page-Turner, Dan Chiasson chooses nine books he predicts will be read in a hundred years, including Corridor by Saskia Hamilton and Go Giants by Nick Laird. FYI, I wrote a Curiosity about one of Chiasson’s picks.
Nine Poetries
The Experience of Being Human
Recommended Reading: Over at BOMB Magazine, Jesse Ball and Catherine Lacey discuss strategies for a non-interview, why they write, and poetry’s “direct utility toward experience.”
The Begging the Question Question
Just what does it mean to “beg” a question, anyway? And did I just do it, or not? The Book Bench is on the case.
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The Second Pass Interviewed
On the occasion of its first anniversary, The Second Pass founder John Williams gets interviewed by VQR. “I realize I’m not making a convincing case for the Luddite thing. You’ll just have to trust me.”
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Boys Might Cry
Look, we get it. You’re as sad as the rest of us that Frank Ocean’s new album didn’t actually drop on Friday. Luckily, there’s a fantastic essay over at The Atlantic which examines Ocean in the context of Harper Lee and the myth of the reclusive artist: “Channel Orange, like Mockingbird, is an unapologetic masterpiece for people defining themselves at the intersection of lived experience and possibility.”
High Praise for Rebecca Solnit
In a new issue of N1BR, Nikil Saval takes a look at Rebecca Solnit‘s latest, calling its predecessor River of Shadows “surely one of the best books of the past decade.”
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Dear Diary
Craig Brown recommends five published diaries for your reading pleasure.
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You Should Have This Title Read to You
When it comes to the pleasures of reading out loud, Michael Robbins isn’t so much interested in “why we find certain sounds in certain combinations pleasing or disturbing,” but he does enjoy “the hows.”
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