2024: A Year in Reading
some books we loved this year
I WANT TO START BY SAYING: An Interview with Samuel Ace
“…an insistence on this is rather than what might be…”
RUSSELL ATKINS, 1926–2024
“a profoundly original poet, editor, composer, dramatist, small press publisher, and avant-garde figure of the 20th century”
WI(E)LD(Y) TRIO: Three “Backlist” Recommendations
“if what you erase will remain with you
after you’re gone;”
Readings from and of Palestine (5)
“We refuse to give up the search for a form in which life is known as precious, particular, possible, shared.”
MECHANICAL BULL: An Interview with Rennie Ament
“I’m stretching and stressing out the language to see what it can do.”
ORDINARY ENTANGLEMENT: An Interview with Melissa Dickey
“So that’s the process part. But the patterning is more mysterious.”
THE DEVIL’S WORKSHOP: An Interview with Xavier Cavazos
“I learned that I could go deep into taboo, faith, and ceremony. That poetry can open those doors.”
2023: A Year in Reading & Writing
“the moments by which we tend to find ourselves measuring our days”
Readings from and of Palestine (4)
“moment by moment, subjective, intensely personal, yet also collective, historical, hugely consequential”
Readings from and of Palestine (3)
“Too often literature in translation is treated as if it were ‘news from elsewhere’ being delivered in a convenient package for Western readers.”
Readings from and of Palestine (2)
“This is not simply a work about suffering, but about how to see or hear or comprehend suffering.”
Readings from and of Palestine (1)
“Literature is an alternative present you practice now.”
NOTES ON BEST PRACTICES FOR ADJUNCT LABOR
“The working conditions of adjunct labor are also the learning conditions of students.”
HOW IT FEELS TO BE IN IT: An Interview with Dara Barrois/Dixon
“Ha, you get the idea. I think making a poem is a pretty dangerous thing to do.”
The Book Begins to Speak: On Teaching RENDER / AN APOCALYPSE
“It was hard to step out of this mode of hearing.”
LISTEN: Rebecca Gayle Howell Reads from RENDER / AN APOCALYPSE (Part II)
“This is how you preserve.”
A Few Observations on the Tenth Anniversary of RENDER / AN APOCALYPSE, by Jennifer Ashton
“The pigs that fence once contained were not just food but property.”
RENDER, and the Shock of the New: A Response by Alicia Ostriker
“Reading this book, you may feel as if someone has taken an axe to you. Yes, someone has.”
LISTEN: Rebecca Gayle Howell Reads from RENDER / AN APOCALYPSE (Part I)
“Do you not call it banquet?”