Shuntaro Tanikawa is one of the world's most celebrated living poets. I’m not alone in believing that his name and works should be as familiar to English-language readers as those of Miłosz, Celan, or Tranströmer. "62 Sonnets," written after WWII, when Tanikawa was still a young man in a nation grappling with unfathomable change, is a fantastic introduction to this poet's expansive and powerful oeuvre. Indeed, in the face of the climate crisis and ongoing global conflict, I believe Tanikawa's poetry offers the English-speaking world unexpected ways of knowing that might help us navigate the moment with clarity, intelligence, and humanity.
Martin Rock on 62 Sonnets |
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An Interview with Brittany Rogers
"As a poor person, there are a lot of resources that you lack, and the library is one of few places that you can go to get a lot of those resources met. So I’m catching the bus to the library not just for whatever the latest book is, but this is where I got my taxes done. This is where I would go for internet. This is where I’m going to rent movies. So, I was really heartbroken as different libraries closed. For me, it didn’t just feel like, okay, this is the closing of this library....but this is also the closing of a chapter of my life that was really significant to forming who I am as a person."
via RECKON |
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What Sparks Poetry: Aaron McCollough on "Not at Duino”
"I am increasingly persuaded that American Christianity’s embrace of Donald Trump is simply the latest expression of a terrific counter-scandal, effectively another, much more gradual transvaluation of values, whereby the dominant American secular and religious visions have aligned themselves with a cult of progress, the technocratic human image for which power can only mean domination, exploitation, and mastery. The key joke of this era is the one where the man puts a gun to his head, and when his wife starts laughing says to her, 'What’s so funny? You’re next!'" |
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