Varick Street Varick Street
March 15, 1947 At night the factories struggle awake, wretched uneasy buildings veined with pipes attempt their work. Trying to breathe the elongated nostrils haired with spikes give off such stenches, too. And I shall sell you sell you sell you of course, my dear, and you’ll sell me. On certain floors certain wonders. Pale dirty light, some captured iceberg being prevented from melting. See the mechanical moons, sick, being made to wax and wane at somebody’s instigation. And I shall sell you sell you sell you of course, my dear, and you’ll sell me. Lights music of love work on. The presses print calendars I suppose, the moons make medicine or confectionary. Our bed shrinks from the soot and the hapless odors hold us close. And I shall sell you sell you sell you of course, my dear, and you’ll sell me. This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979), the poet laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, published two poems in The Nation between 1945 and 1947, when Randall Jarrell was interim literary editor. She was a longtime friend of the more frequent Nation contributor Marianne Moore, who in a 1946 review in these pages described Bishop as “spectacular in being unspectacular.”
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Elizabeth Bishop
The Dream Life of Desire The Dream Life of Desire
Drawing a line between poetry and the political has never been simple.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Ange Mlinko
Frederick Law Olmsted Surveys a City Burned to the Ground Frederick Law Olmsted Surveys a City Burned to the Ground
Chicago's struggle to recover from the Great Fire is engaging the study of its best and most conservative minds.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Frederick Law Olmsted
Is the UK Labor Party Too Moderate to Be in Power? Is the UK Labor Party Too Moderate to Be in Power?
Its leaders speak the language of social concern, yet their strategy is marked by extreme caution, an avoidance of any appearance of radicalism.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Edward Miliband
Now and Forever Now and Forever
April 25, 1994 I’ll settle for Immortality— Not thru the body Not thru the eyes Star spangled high mountains waning moon over Aspen peaks; But thru words, thru the breath of long sentences loves I have, heart beating still, inspiration continuous, exhalation of cadenced affection These immortal survive America, survive the fall of States Departure of my body, mouth dumb dust This verse broadcasts desire, accomplishment of Desire Now and forever boys can read girls ream, old men cry Old women sigh youth still come. 7/19/92, Aspen This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) published three poems in The Nation in the 1990s. A 1959 letter to the editor he co-wrote is reprinted in this issue.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Allen Ginsberg
How to Lose Friends and Influence People How to Lose Friends and Influence People
…and other tales from the “back of the book.”
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Elizabeth Pochoda
1885–1895: Anarchists Are Vagabonds and Ruffians and Threaten Everything We Most Value on Earth 1885–1895: Anarchists Are Vagabonds and Ruffians and Threaten Everything We Most Value on Earth
There is nothing likely to prove so effective a deterrent as death.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / The Nation
Are Women Morally Superior to Men? Are Women Morally Superior to Men?
Woman as sharer and carer, woman as earth mother, woman as guardian of small rituals—these images are as old as time.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Katha Pollitt
Home Song Home Song
March 24, 1926 Oh breezes blowing on the red hill-top By tall fox-tails, Where through dry twigs and leaves and grasses hop The dull-brown quails! Is there no magic floating in the air To bring to me A breath of you, when I am homesick here Across the sea? Oh black boys holding on the cricket ground A penny race! What other black boy frisking round and round, Plays in my place? When picnic days come with their yearly thrills In warm December, The boy in me romps with you in the hills— Remember! Paris, 1925 This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. Claude McKay (1889–1948), author of the novels Home to Harlem (1928) and Banjo (1929), only published this one poem in The Nation, but he also wrote three essays in the mid-1930s on race relations in New York City—including a firsthand report on the 1935 Harlem riot—and one travel dispatch from North Africa.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Claude McKay
And We Love Life And We Love Life
And we love life if we find a way to it. We dance in between martyrs and raise a minaret for violet or palm trees. We love life if we find a way to it. And we steal from the silkworm a thread to build a sky and fence in this departure. We open the garden gate for the jasmine to step out on the streets as a beautiful day. We love life if we find a way to it. And we plant, where we settle, some fast growing plants, and harvest the dead. We play the flute like the color of the faraway, sketch over the dirt corridor a neigh. We write our names one stone at a time, O lightning brighten the night. We love life if we find a way to it… (translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah) This article is part of The Nation’s 150th Anniversary Special Issue. Download a free PDF of the issue, with articles by James Baldwin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Toni Morrison, Howard Zinn and many more, here. Born in a Galilee village later destroyed by the Israeli army, Mahmoud Darwish lived for years in exile in Beirut and Paris before returning to Palestine in 1996. The most widely translated modern Arab poet, Darwish died in 2008.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Mahmoud Darwish