Jobs and Empire Jobs and Empire
The music of Empire is the theology of capitalism.
Apr 8, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Clover
Trevor Noah’s Tweets Are Awful and Sexist. Don’t Fire Him for Them. Trevor Noah’s Tweets Are Awful and Sexist. Don’t Fire Him for Them.
The best response to the new Daily Show host’s sexism would be to put more women in the writers’ room.
Mar 31, 2015 / Blog / Michelle Goldberg
Animal Education Animal Education
War between men and dogs looms in the Budapest of White God; Ethan Hawke pays homage to New York City’s greatest piano teacher in Seymour: An Introduction.
Mar 31, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Inequality and Broken Windows Inequality and Broken Windows
Eric responds to his critics and reviews the best shows of the week in today's Altercation.
Mar 25, 2015 / Blog / Eric Alterman
From Lenin to Lego From Lenin to Lego
Snowpiercer mocks what The Lego Movie cheers—a happy world of compulsory production.
Mar 24, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Clover
Hound Voice Hound Voice
December 10, 1938 Because we love bare hills and stunted trees And were the last to choose the settled ground, Its boredom of the desk or of the spade, because So many years companioned by a hound, Our voices carry; and though slumber bound, Some few half wake and half renew their choice, Give tongue, proclaim their hidden name—“hound voice.” The women that I picked spoke sweet and low And yet gave tongue. “Hound Voices” were they all. We picked each other from afar and knew What hour of terror comes to test the soul, And in that terror’s name obeyed the call, And understood, what none have understood, Those images that waken in the blood. Some day we shall get up before the dawn And find our ancient hounds before the door, And wide awake know that the hunt is on; Stumbling upon the blood-dark track once more, That stumbling to the kill beside the shore; Then cleaning out and bandaging of wounds, And chants of victory amid the encircling hounds. 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. William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) published his first poem in The Nation in 1933; his last appeared three months after his death.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / William Butler Yeats
Dream Song Dream Song
January 25, 1965 The surly cop lookt out at me in sleep insect-like. Guess, who was the insect. I’d asked him in my robe & hospital gown in the elevator politely why someone saw so many police around, and without speaking he looked. A meathead, and of course he was armed, to creep across my nervous system some time ago wrecked. I saw the point of Loeb at last, to give oneself over to crime wholly, baffle, torment, roar laughter, or without sound attend while he is cooked until with trembling hands hoist I my true & legal ax, to get at the brains. I never liked brains— it’s the texture & the thought— but I will like them now, spooning at you, my guardian, slowly, until at length the rains lose heart and the sun flames out. 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. John Berryman (1914–1972) wrote five essays and eight poems for The Nation between 1935 and 1970. One month after the last poem was published, he sent a letter to the editor noting the “unremitting hostility” of an unfriendly review by “this bastard,” Hayden Carruth.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / John Berryman
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
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
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