Books
In Conversation
Molly Peacock with David Varno
Poet Molly Peacock is back in town, to perform her one-woman poetry show for one week in February at Urban Stages. The Shimmering Verge is about the line between ordinary existence and the heightened state of reality inside a poem.
Prose Culture
By Hirsh SawhneyLiterary fiction by young women is dominated by Zadies and Jhumpas, voices lauded as fresh because of their chic hybridity. In a twist of our times, the writing of Heather McGowan, a white Ivy Leaguer, might be more innovative and iconoclastic than many contemporary writers who allegedly transgress literary convention.
Poetry: Spicing Up Political Poetry
By Anju Mary PaulThree months after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Palestinian-American Suheir Hammad performed her poem “First Writing Since”during the debut episode of the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry.
Art: A Time to Remember
By Ellen PearlmanIn October 1975, New York, hopelessly mired in bankruptcy, got down on bended knee and in uncharacteristic humility, begged the Feds for help. Ron Nessen, Gerald Ford’s press secretary, snidely countered by comparing the city to a drug abusing child—“You don’t give her a hundred dollars a day to support her habit”—leading to the now-infamous Daily News headline: “Ford To City: Drop Dead.”
Essays: The Perfect Postmodernist
By Alexander NazaryanThere is pretty much nothing in common between the porn starlet Stephanie Swift, who earned the Best Actress (Video) distinction at the 1998 Adult Video News Awards, and the Maine Lobster Festival, to which seafood enthusiasts make an annual pilgrimage.
