“Exorbitant cost aside, if I can have the complete works of Shakespeare electronically beamed into my brain in under ten minutes, can I really say I’ve experienced Shakespeare? There is something organic about the experience of moving your eyeballs from left to right over an LCD screen in order to take in a sequence of marks the brain then must interpret as words, all the while using your hands to grip a lightweight, durable device.” Arguing for e-books over beaming text into your brain.
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Breaking Out
As part of a collaboration with several international magazines, Full-Stop is publishing Babelsprech International, a series of articles on poetry around the world. In the latest edition, Karel Piorecký writes about contemporary Czech poetry, drawing a line between the pre- and post-Communist periods. Related: John Yargo on the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal.
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New Wave of Confessions
For The Guardian, Rafia Zakaria writes on the new wave of confessional “feminist” memoirs. As she puts it, “We’re on an uncomfortable tightrope between a bold new dialogue about women and sex, and the monetisation of that conversation by powers that recognise that as a gap in the market.” Pair with this Millions essay on feminist pop anthems.
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The Art of Villanelle Isn’t Hard to Master
The villanelle, beloved by Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, and Dylan Thomas, might be making a comeback.
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Sainthood Etc.
Need something to complement our profile of Jami Attenberg’s Saint Mazie today? Then try this on for size: Year in Reading alum Emily Gould conducts an interview with the author at The Rumpus. Among other things, they talk about historical fiction, writing quickly and doing research on the Lower East Side.
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Delicate Husk, Inconvenient Hair
Recommended Reading: “So Often the Body Becomes a Distraction” by Kaveh Akbar.
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