La Fontaine’s Fable by Douglas Penick

It is the Donkey’s acceptance and internalisation of the judgement from on high that is so shockingly modern as it prefigures the mentality of victims in witch hunts, show trials, struggle sessions and other kinds of brain washing...
Read MoreOut of Sebald’s Sequence by Greg Gerke

It seems there are some writers who teach you how to write and there are others who teach you what to write about...
Read MoreInfinite Edits

Michael Pietsch and David Foster Wallace’s collaboration on Infinite Jest highlights the intervenient role of the editor as the mediator between the author and the reader, or the author and the publisher...
Read MoreJoe Linker on Eli S. Evans

We find ourselves in New Hampshire, or Mexico, driving about, or at home, and writing and thinking ahead...
Read MoreAndre Gerard on Thomas Love Peacock

Who knew that William Bankes was an amateur of Thomas Love Peacock! Perhaps I should have...
Read MoreProusting in the Republic of Letters

Marcel Proust represents many things. Chief among these perhaps, especially for non-French readers, is quantity...
Read MoreFarah Abdessamad on François-René de Chateaubriand

I spent a good part of my childhood at home staring outside my bedroom window, following the trail of planes approaching the nearby Paris airport in the sky from my banlieue. I envied the passengers...
Read MoreHoof, Wing, Paw

I’ve always loved Jim Harrison’s poetry—so full of itself, so direct and hungry and angered and awed...
Read MoreWhere Berlin Begins

From the bridge, I go back, usually, through Babelsberg. I pass flocks of ducks trustingly swimming up to the shore. Above, on a small hill—the palace...
Read MoreArtificial Taste by Mary Wollstonecraft

A taste for rural scenes, in the present state of society, appears to be very often an artificial sentiment, rather inspired by poetry and romances, than a real perception of the beauties of nature...
Read MoreSome Sounds

A house down around the block is getting a new roof, hammers echoing like giant flickers. Since the big virus outbreak...
Read MoreWhile on holiday in Bognor…

All men are equal on their holidays: all are free to dream their castles without thought of expense, or skill of architect...
Read MoreThe tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right...
Read MoreThe thing about new blooms is that they tend to bleed— / Those petals birthed / hugging close / that come warmer weather are tricked into jumping away...
Read MoreI spent a good part of my childhood at home staring outside my bedroom window, following the trail of planes approaching the nearby Paris airport in the sky from my banlieue. I envied the passengers...
Read MoreThe tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right...
Read MoreThe thing about new blooms is that they tend to bleed— / Those petals birthed / hugging close / that come warmer weather are tricked into jumping away...
Read MoreI spent a good part of my childhood at home staring outside my bedroom window, following the trail of planes approaching the nearby Paris airport in the sky from my banlieue. I envied the passengers...
Read More