Category Archives: Blog

Translating “Raymond Carver”

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Ellen Akins

So peculiar: Upon reading Rachel Cusk’s piece about parenting in the New York Times Magazine (no, the piece, not the parenting, was in the magazine) and encountering this: Raymond Carver’s disturbing poem, “On an Old Photograph of My Son,” an outpouring … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog, Reading Notes | Tagged "On an Old Photograph of My Son", "Stupid", New York Times Magazine, Rachel Cusk, Raymond Carver, translating poetry, Worlds Poetry Archive | Comments Off

In class with Ginsberg, Mailer, & Burroughs

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Reading a collection of interviews with Allen Ginsberg, edited by Michael Schumacher, to be published by the University of Minnesota Press in Spring, 2016, I came across one entry in which Ginsberg describes asking Norman Mailer and William S. Burroughs, who were … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog, Reading Notes | Tagged "Sunday Walks in the Suburbs", Allen Ginsbert, Blake, Charles Reznikoff, Ezra Pound, Jack Kerouac, Michael Schumacher, Naropa, Trungpa, University of Minnesota Press, William Carlos Williams | Comments Off

On “The Buried Giant” and Kazuo Ishiguro

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Ellen Akins

My review of Kazuo Ishiguro’s odd new novel, a tale of post-Arthurian England invested with fantasy and myth and fading memory. Neil Gaiman, on the front page of the NYTBR, had a similar reading, but said more about fantasy. And … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog, Reviews | Tagged A Pale View of Hills, Alex Post, interviews, Kazuo Ishiguro, reviews, Susannah Hunnewell, The Buried Giant, The Paris Review, The Unconsoled | Comments Off

Quan Barry, “She Weeps Each Time You’re Born”

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Poet Quan Barry’s strangely luminous dark novel channels the history of Vietnam through the experience of a woman who hears the dead. I talked about it as a reflection on the post-apocalyptic present at The Millions and reviewed it in the Minneapolis … Continue reading →

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Angela Woodward, Philip Graham

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Ellen Akins

Looking for a favorite story of mine, Philip Graham’s “I Dreamt About You Last Night,” from his collection The Art of the Knock, I found this interview Graham did in 2013 for Fiction Writers Review, with a writer I wasn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog, Reading Notes | Tagged Angela Woodward, Art of the Knock, End of the Fire Cult, Philip Graham | Comments Off