Steeltown in the Rearview

The images Stephen Shore took in 1977 of scenes from the Rust Belt captured the start of a slow-rolling social catastrophe.

April 19, 2021

Whose ‘Good Life’?

As back-to-the-land pioneers, Scott and Helen Nearing were gurus of a social movement enjoying renewed interest. But it’s an equivocal legacy.

April 17, 2021

Clarice Lispector and Love’s Apprentice

Who are these bizarre creatures, who ask of each other what no two people who are suffering from desire have perhaps ever asked?

April 15, 2021

Flacking for Facebook

How perfect that a failed Liberal Democrat should be leading the PR effort to persuade us that liberal democracy is safe with the social media giant.

April 13, 2021

On Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was a consummate refutation of the impression that life must be frantic.

June 25, 1964 issue

Crossing the Invisible Line

The astonishing work of poet Eileen Myles set a bar for openness, frankness, and variability few lives could ever match.

March 24, 2016 issue

The Consolations of Strangeness

Jana Prikryl’s poetry shows a probing intellect alert to the strangeness of our lives, as well as our own estrangement from ourselves.

August 18, 2016 issue

Acts of Extreme Attention

Karen Solie, the consummate poet of the Trans-Canadian Highway, has taken an evolutionary leap with her recent poetry, trading comedy for sublime beauty.

November 21, 2019 issue

The Book that No One Knows

David Schubert’s poetry is like opening a window in a room that had become stuffy without one’s realizing it.

October 5, 2000 issue

‘A Born Contrarian’

For the subversive, modest, trenchant Bertolt Brecht, a poem is simply the most stringent and economical mode of presenting an argument.

December 20, 2018 issue

Asking the Right Questions

“I am interested in how much freedom a person can have—this freedom leading them to something that only they can do.”

April 17, 2021

A Dispatch from Our Correspondent

“The US must learn to discover the sense of purpose that comes from achieving things of virtue, things that have an objective social need.”

April 10, 2021

Armed with Arguments

“Today, the NRA is on the defensive, and the gun control movement is stronger. That political fight will more likely determine gun regulation than the Supreme Court.”

April 3, 2021

The Ecstatic Internet

“Many of us have found a contingent online community of funny, smart black people from across the diaspora, one that isn’t necessarily available to us IRL.”

March 27, 2021