Berfrois

January 2015

Missing

Missing

The Missing Pieces derives its power from how it pitches its content against formal manipulation of two kinds of syntax: the order and patterning of the unit losses, and the word order and patterning of clauses between the bullets that separate those units.

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MDMA Four Times a Day

MDMA Four Times a Day

How an obscure 1980s collection might be poetry's best one-night stand.

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Divestment is both moral and economically wise…

Divestment is both moral and economically wise…

When the fossil-fuel divestment movement first stirred on college campuses three years ago, you could almost hear Big Oil and Wall Street laughing.

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Really, we are children of snow, aching in secret…

Really, we are children of snow, aching in secret…

When I was two years old, or maybe four years old, it snowed in Las Vegas. The snow covered the concrete and the sand, and the alleyways between the casinos downtown.

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In Rome, Seneca was uniquely placed to influence those in power…

In Rome, Seneca was uniquely placed to influence those in power…

Sometime in the spring of the year 59, the emperor Nero decided to murder his mother.

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Eliot was growing old, Eliot was growing old…

Eliot was growing old, Eliot was growing old…

Young Eliot marks both a milestone and a turning point. First, it coincides with the 50th anniversary of his death.

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Claudia Landolfi: Europe’s Colonial Perversion

Claudia Landolfi: Europe’s Colonial Perversion

The aftermath of a violent act or after a sharp change of political horizons is also a crisis of imagination and language. The rupture of certainties in everyday life corresponds to the break of meanings and of discourses. The rest is silence.

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Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei: Prison in Albania

Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei: Prison in Albania

The Albanian justice system is unable – for a variety of well-known and very human reasons – to process the fact that four innocent people were shot in broad daylight by the Republic Guards.

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Virginia Woolf on E. M. Forster

Virginia Woolf on E. M. Forster

There are many reasons which should prevent one from criticizing the work of contemporaries. Besides the obvious uneasiness — the fear of hurting feelings — there is too the difficulty of being just.

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