Ben Purkert reviews Year in Reading alum Ben Lerner’s The Hatred of Poetry. If you like the title, check out ten poems for people who hate poetry.
On Hating Poetry
Early Inspirations
Why do great books we read as children have a more profound effect on us than great books we read as adults? It’s hard to say, but YA novelist Anne Cardi comes up with a number of reasons, among them the ability of children’s books to permanently change our viewpoints. (FYI, we asked a bunch of teenagers to recommend last year’s best YA novels.)
Harry Potter and the Depressing Play
For a boy wizard whose saga ended six years ago, Harry Potter is in the news a lot lately. The Chosen One got a makeover by Jim Kay, and now J.K. Rowling is working on a stage play based on Potter. Don’t expect a stage set of Hogwarts because the play will focus on Harry’s early years at 4 Privet Drive.
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Dr. Seuss Museum
We just got a new Dr. Seuss book; now we get a full Dr. Seuss museum, and it’s probably safe to bet it won’t look like just another children’s center.
The Perks of Being A Wallflower
“Eleven years later, the Atlantic Monthly editor, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, made a similar request to an obscure, retiring poet named Emily Dickinson who had written a letter asking if her verses ‘breathed.’ Her response was much like Melville’s, if typically elliptical: ‘Could you believe me—without? I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur—and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves—Would this do just as well?'” The age-old problem: how writers deal with publicity.
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The Master Carpenter
“Better to close your eyes and carry on with your own work, pretending the master carpenter doesn’t exist.” Karl Ove Knausgaard reads Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission – one of the most anticipated books of 2015. Pair with this Millions essay on Knausgaard’s My Struggle.
One Step Closer to a TARDIS
The New Museum wants Big Apple residents to recall their not-so-distant pasts. By calling 1-855-FOR-1993 from hundreds of pay phones throughout the city, New Yorkers can hear something interesting about their location – as it existed exactly twenty years ago.
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