Autumn Journal Autumn Journal
Gingerly the moon moves near the hilltop church and slides around the transept, slow, to peer inside the cloister. No: those are not friars there, but children… outside their nests. She rests against a brim of wind. Their wings are hurt… But lying in ordered rows of narrow beds they’re all asleep, as if they’re tired. Tired from flying, at least in dreams, and so in dreams their mothers hold them close against warm skin. The moon, she listens in. She doesn’t want to wake them, she only wants to see. And then she leaves, but rises high. She needs to make the hilltops gleam, and drape a sheen across the sea, but too she sends a beam back down to where the children sleep. And up she climbs, up through the sky, the high good sky, and searches far and wide to find the stars. Where are the stars? She scans the sky. Where can they be? She wants to tell the faultless virgin stars what she has seen. (translated from the Italian by Taije Silverman and Marina Della Putta Johnston)
Feb 11, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Giovanni Pascoli
Beyond Naturalism: On Ronald Dworkin Beyond Naturalism: On Ronald Dworkin
How did an essential figure in the modern revival of liberal political philosophy end up pondering issues of theology?
Feb 11, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Michael Rosen
Metanarrative and the Woody Allen Sex Abuse Case Metanarrative and the Woody Allen Sex Abuse Case
For a lot of commentators on all sides, the stakes far exceed the truth of Dylan Farrow’s accusation itself.
Feb 7, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Lisa Duggan
Beyond Belief Beyond Belief
Conservative religious thinkers and their intellectual crusades.
Feb 5, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Chris Lehmann
Bull in China’s Shop Bull in China’s Shop
The urbanization of China and infusion of Western forms amounts to a second Cultural Revolution.
Feb 4, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Michael Sorkin
The Loved Ones The Loved Ones
Robert May’s Kids for Cash, Sebastián Lelio’s Gloria, Razvan Radulescu’s Child’s Pose
Feb 4, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Slavery in the Modern World Slavery in the Modern World
David Brion Davis’s pathbreaking study of the problem of slavery.
Jan 29, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Eric Foner
Abie’s Yiddish Muse Abie’s Yiddish Muse
Like a lot of red revolutionaries, Abraham Cahan ended up to the right of where he began.
Jan 29, 2014 / Books & the Arts / D.D. Guttenplan
Tested Tested
Diane Ravitch’s latest call-to-arms against the privatization of public schools.
Jan 29, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Joseph Featherstone
Eurydice Eurydice
It’s more like the sound a doe makes when the arrowhead replaces the day with an answer to the rib’s hollowed hum. We saw it coming but kept walking through the hole in the garden. Because the leaves were bright green & the fire only a pink brushstroke in the distance. It’s not about the light—but how dark it makes you depending on where you stand. Depending on where you stand his name can appear like moonlight shredded in a dead dog’s fur. His name changed when touched by gravity. Gravity breaking our kneecaps just to show us the sky. We kept saying Yes— even with all those birds. Who would believe us now? My voice cracking like bones inside the radio. Silly me. I thought love was real & the body imaginary. But here we are—standing in the cold field, him calling for the girl. The girl beside him. Frosted grass snapping beneath her hooves.
Jan 28, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Ocean Vuong