A Case Minder Enters a Bizarre World
“Your warm sentences is always best sympathy for me. I inform my father about your letters. We honor you and your friends.”This e-mail came to me from Teheran and… More
Faith & Reason
Here & ElsewhereI cannot write I cannot writewhen I want to, when I need to.I mean I cannot writewhat must be writtenwhat demands to be written.Every morning I ask… More
The New Religion
The body is a nation I have not known. The pure joy of air: the moment between leaping from a cliff into the wall of blue below. Like that. More
Home Economics
Lexington, Ky.—When you fly over the Appalachians of eastern Kentucky, you can see the gray scars on the mountains, pockmarks reaching far to the north and east that are… More
On Faith & Reason
Instead of me,/ the reading lamp begins to move../ It takes a different shape,/ becomes a starship,/ and the little men/ get off to take me/ as if I… More
On Faith & Reason
The VisitWhen I looked up from my blank pagethere was an angel in the room.A rather commonplace angel,presumably of lower rank.You cannot imagine, he said,the degree to which you’re… More
Conversation With Noah
– If all those people must be flooded, is it not fair that they be warned?– The calamity itself is the warning.– Then your god is acting rashly.– What… More
A Field Guide to Ukrainian Sex
A Field Guide to Ukrainian Sex by Oksana Zabuzhko is a book that absolutely deserves to be translated into English, and pronto. Ostensibly the tale of a disastrous love… More
Watching As the World Vanishes
It was shameful, everyone agreed afterward, that no one did anything at the time. Because people knew it was happening. There were reports, early on. People saw things, near… More
Poet’s Choice
I attended an event last month in New York City sponsored by the PEN American Center and entitled "State of Emergency: Unconventional Readings." PEN believes that it is urgently… More