The pandemic and the existential questions it raised sent me on a poetry kick, deeper than I’d ever dived before.
Jorie Graham’s elegant cry for help from the heart of this planet resounded just right for me, and I’m afraid it may have the power to keep doing so until the distant year the title references and beyond.
To 2040 begins with question masquerading as fact: 'Are we / extinct yet. Who owns / the map.' These visionary new poems reveal Graham as historian, cartographer, prophet, plotting an apocalyptic world where rain must be translated, silence sings louder than speech, and wired birds parrot recordings of their extinct ancestors. In one poem, the speaker is warned by a clairvoyant, 'the American experiment will end in 2030'. Graham exposes a potentially inevitable future, sirens sounding among industrial ruins. In sparse lines that move with cinematic precision, we pan from overhead views of reshaped…
As an arts journalist who loves few things more than to introduce someone to a creative work they might come to love, the personality type I most identify with is “fan.”
This “biography of the audience,” as the author describes it, and its reckoning with the tough questions of what we should do when an artist we admire turns out to be deplorable, is just the kind of cultural criticism I would (and do) eagerly recommend.
'Funny, lively and convivial... how rare and nourishing this sort of roaming thought is and what a joy to read' MEGAN NOLAN, SUNDAY TIMES
'An exhilarating, shape-shifting exploration of the perilous boundaries between art and life' JENNY OFFILL
A passionate, provocative and blisteringly smart interrogation of how we experience art in the age of #MeToo, and whether we can separate an artist's work from their biography.
What do we do with the art of monstrous men? Can we love the work of Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson, Hemingway and Picasso? Should we love…
We all struggle sometimes with feeling flat and uninspired. In plain English, this bright book is a welcome reminder to keep your eyes and ears open, to engage with nature and beauty and your own childlike sense of curiosity.
Consider this my consent that I’m available to take part in the author’s scientific studies of the art of “Everyday Wonder.”
"Read this book to connect with your highest self.” —Susan Cain, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet and Quiet
“We need more awe in our lives, and Dacher Keltner has written the definitive book on where to find it.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again
“Awe is awesome in both senses: a superb analysis of an emotion that is strongly felt but poorly understood, with a showcase of examples that remind us of what is worthy of our awe.” —Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of…
My book is an anecdotal history of the progressive movements that have shaped the growth of the United States and the songs of all genres that have accompanied and defined them.
