“She was to me and so many poets an exemplary and inimitable figure. And I mean to emphasize the tension between ‘exemplary’ and ‘inimitable’—what her example taught us was the necessity of going our own way, of being one with others.” Ben Lerner remembers C.D. Wright, who passed away earlier this week.
One With Others
Glamorama – Brooklyn Book Festival Edition
NYC-area readers are invited to an event this Friday centered on the topic of marketing literature in the age of Gawker. At 7 p.m. I’ll be moderating a panel discussion that includes novelists Fiona Maazel and Tao Lin, literary agent Erin Hosier, and Christopher Kolouris of the website Scallywag & Vagabond. The event, which doubles as a launch party for Canteen magazine’s “Hot Authors” issue, also features two bands, a DJ, and an open bar. More info at 3rd Ward.
“I think the role of the critic will remain strong even if the media landscape is constantly changing.”
Alex Ross, New Yorker music columnist and author of Listen To This, is interviewed for The Browser.
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Breece D’J Pancake’s Gravity and Triviality in Grief
At the Southern Review of Books, Justin Evans reflects on Breece D’J Pancake‘s celebrated collection of short stories from 1984, published five years after his death. “The stories of Breece D’J Pancake, by their own merit, are remarkably tied to the rural home of their author,” Evans writes. “Unfortunately, they are also tied to the author’s absence. Honestly, it’s tempting to romanticize this collection of fiction. I still have a copy of the 2002 edition that I stayed up all night reading sometime around 6 years ago. There was something about the scale of history and place against the scale of the individual, about the mix of gravity and triviality in grief that I found energizing at a time when most of my day went to physical labor.”
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Why Read Moby Dick?
Nathaniel Philbrick answers the question Why Read Moby-Dick: “the level of the language is like no other,” but also “it’s as close to being our American Bible as we have.”
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Undine Spragg: Edith Wharton’s Best Antiheroine
In her introduction to Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country, Jia Tolentino paints Undine Spragg as an easily relatable antiheroine.
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