SoundMachine by Rachel Zucker In her elegiac poem “Rough Waters,” Rachel Zucker asks: “What story is this? / What animal am I?” These two questions and all that they carry – ideas of form, displacement, incongruity, language, and instinct – run throughout SoundMachine, Zucker’s collection of genre-bending poems. Whether speaking about motherhood, grief, or poetry,…
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie The title character in Salman Rushdie’s new novel, Quichotte, explains his chivalric quest with the following quotation: “We may be after a celestial goal, but we still have to travel along the interstate,” thus summarizing the entire premise of this earth-shaking novel. Salman Rushdie has meshed the epic proportions of Don Quixote with contemporary culture in a way that is shockingly modern yet refreshingly timeless. Fans of Don Quixote will be stunned at every turn with the creative remodeling of the classic story. Sancho is a Pinocchio-esque son evolved from Quichotte’s loneliness; Miss Salma R is…
The first thing that Mark Statman – translator, poet, and The Columbia Review alumnus – told me during our phone conversation was that there were hummingbirds clustered in the flowering tree outside his window. If he seemed a little distracted, it was because he was watching the birds. This type of moment-to-moment attention is characteristic…
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong It is a pleasure to read a sentence that makes language new; it is a revelation to read a book full of such sentences. Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous creates a language of longing. The novel is framed as a letter from the…
Dunce by Mary Ruefle Mary Ruefle’s Dunce examines “the museum of / everyday life.” Throughout the book, Ruefle narrows her poetic gaze on the subjects and objects of the quotidian, and in turns unexpected, deeply funny, and wildly lyrical, exposes the ostensibly dulled or hidden mysteries that lie within. I am most enraptured by the earnest and insistent belief in language’s efficacy that Ruefle’s speaker marvels of throughout. In “Super Bowl,” Ruefle writes of a woman overheard on a plane, “I felt such joy over the unknown / outcome of her words.” I too, not knowing how Ruefle’s artful line…