“Beginning with the fall of towers and ending with the emergence of a new voice, the mastery of Against Translation is clear…”
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From Poetry
A Diorama of Memories: Claire Millikin’s Ransom Street
“Spectres linger in the poems of Ransom Street…”
A Defence of Science
Growing out of a Fall 2017 project initially submitted for Professor Richard Sacks’ “The English Sonnet” course at Columbia University, Emily Sun’s essay is an analysis of a critical edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Sonnet—To Science.” The edition was produced by Sun herself from a number of existing editions of the poem, and is contained…
Writer’s Block, Dickinson, and the Interior
I don’t remember when poetry came into my life…
100th Volume Retrospective: Happy Autumn Fields by John Ashbery
John Ashbery won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and many other prizes. This poem was published by the Review over twenty years after he had earned his M.A. from Columbia. Happy Autumn Fields by John Ashbery I call it (though I’m no authority)The big syndrome, of when everythingLies down together. The pointed roofsThat called…
100th Volume Retrospective: from “Dakar Doldrums” by Allen Ginsberg
At Columbia University, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and other beat poets got to know each other. Many of them were published in the Review. from “Dakar Doldrums” by Allen Ginsberg IV Twenty days have drifted in the wakeOf this slow aged ship that carries coalFrom Texas to Dakar. I, for the sakeOf little but my causelessness of…
100th Volume Retrospective: Choruses by John Hollander
John Hollander was an eminent poet, scholar, and critic. He has written numerous poetry collections, the first of which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. He is also known for his 1981 book Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse. Choruses by John Hollander I (The crumbling days and the hard cold nightsAre flickering,…
100th Volume Retrospective: Atonement by Mary Morris
As a countdown to the release of the first issue of our 100th volume on December 14th, we will be posting pieces every day from previous issues over the years. Our first piece was written by Mary Morris, who went on to earn the Rome Prize in Literature and publish many novels, memoirs, and story collections. She…
Endnotes on Pale Fire
Azure adj. blue, bright, cloudless; (of love) cloudless: The false azure of cloudless love. And when a noun – heaven, palate, the roof of one’s mouth. Azure as in: The bright, bottomless vowels that once echoed against the roof of your mouth. Or: Unstuck from your palate, here I am – trying to speak your…
Water Lilies after Monet
And light— my paint liquid light— the pale flush of rose lustrous daffodil yellow lilac blue and soft electric silver warm blaze colored oil glowing light— shimmering green mesmerizing blurring deep and nebulous sheer light and all I feel is moment… here hazy and bleary glinting of clouds limpid sapphire flashing sky whirling cloud-strokes…