PEN Members Reading at Paradise Banned Event

On Monday, September 30, PEN partnered with the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression for readings in celebration of PEN's Banned Book Month. Reading the poets whose work have been… More

A Banned Books Wrap Up

This September, PEN American Center reached out to writers, editors, literary illuminati, and PEN staff to write about the banned books that matter to them most. Below you’ll find… More

On Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary

The problem of Emma is the problem of desire. Her only métier is desire, and its top percent, love. Emma lusts for gratification through commodity and body and makes… More

War on a Lunchbreak

Not that I ever lay hiding // dying in a ditch, but if I had, I think that I’d / know much about dry grass, the incredible value of… More

A Few Ideas from My Black Box

A Few Ideas from My Black BoxOrange crush. No, blue field.Wait, green ember. Maybe red beam.In-any-case yellow. Possibly,Netherworld gray. Quivering purple?Skylark white. Taking out the trashbeneath a shuddering sadness… More

Ari Banias: Two Poems

And soon it will rain, and we / will be down in the grass again. / A blade of grass gets thirsty; / it’s nice to think we could… More