Once as a kid, I was so bored at my parents’ office that I made a deck of cards. How bored are dogs? Pretty bored, I think. I wonder what would bore a tortoise. I don’t trust books that aren’t a little boring. It’s almost like there should be different …
In a recent thread about sonnets on Twitter, the poet and critic Dana Levin remarked that traditional forms “have resurged.” She added, “Why is that? Is it the way it can hold all our screaming?” When we feel helpless, do metrical forms offer the illusion of control? Or are we drawn to tradition itself, because it’s familiar, and therefore comforting?
Dispatches on the coronavirus outbreak from Madeleine Schwartz in Brooklyn, Anne Enright in Dublin, Joshua Hunt in Busan, Anna Badkhen in Lalibela, Lauren Groff in Gainesville, Christopher Robbins in New York, Elisa Gabbert in Denver, Ian Jack in London, Vanessa Barbara in São Paolo, Rachel Pearson in San Antonio, A.E. Stallings in Athens, Simon Callow in London, Mark Gevisser in Cape Town, Sarah Manguso in Los Angeles, Ruth Margalit in Tel Aviv, Miguel-Anxo Murado in Madrid, Tim Parks in Milan, Eduardo Halfon in Paris, Anastasia Edel in Oakland, and more.
