The Starry Night The Starry Night
September 2, 1961 “That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.” —Vincent Van Gogh, in a letter to his brother The town does not exist except where one black haired tree slips up like a drowned woman into the hot sky. The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die. It moves. They are all alive. Even the moon bulges in its orange irons to push children, like a god, from its eye. The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die: into the rushing beast of the night, sucked up by that great dragon, to split from my life with no flag, no belly, no cry. 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. Anne Sexton (1928–1974) won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for Live or Die.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Anne Sexton
No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear
In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.
Mar 23, 2015 / Feature / Toni Morrison
The Plain Sense of Things The Plain Sense of Things
December 6, 1952 After the leaves have fallen, we return To a plain sense of things. It is as if We had come to an end of the imagination, Inanimate in an inert savoir. It is difficult even to choose the adjective For this blank cold, this sadness without cause. The great structure has become a minor house. No turban walks across the lessened floors. The greenhouse never so badly needed paint. The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side. A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition In a repetitiousness of men and flies. Yet the absence of the imagination had Itself to be imagined. The great pond, The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves, Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see, The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge, Required, as a necessity requires. 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. Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) published ten poems in The Nation between 1936 and 1952.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Wallace Stevens
Game Not Over Game Not Over
Despite the Gamergate backlash, a new generation of activists is working to end the racial, sexual and gender stereotypes promoted by the video-game industry.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Helen Lewis
Have We Reached the End of Jazz Itself? Have We Reached the End of Jazz Itself?
John Coltrane and other “lost” musicians of the ’60s are teaching a new generation of artists to bend time and space.
Mar 23, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Gene Seymour
Why the New Film About the Gang Rape and Murder of Jyoti Singh Is Required Viewing Why the New Film About the Gang Rape and Murder of Jyoti Singh Is Required Viewing
The documentary has been banned in India—which makes watching it only more urgent.
Mar 20, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Nitasha Kaul
Silence and Slow Time Silence and Slow Time
The art of On Kawara.
Mar 20, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Interview With Steve Earle Interview With Steve Earle
"Everybody thought everybody was fooling everybody. And both of us were probably right to a certain extent, everybody was fooling each of us."
Mar 19, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman
Cookie Don’t Crumble Cookie Don’t Crumble
Fox’s Empire made TV-ratings history by letting a black woman be her multidimensional self.
Mar 18, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Kristal Brent Zook
I’ve Got a Little List, Continued I’ve Got a Little List, Continued
The best TV shows, albums and concerts: it's all inside today's Altercation.
Mar 12, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman