An investigation roils the grieving city and widens the fissures in a society defined by race and class. Pungent details raise the realism to an extraordinary level.

—Cary Holladay on The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland from Simon & Schuster tinyurl.com/yc4cm8v9

Always the women’s place,
this water, cold and dark,
the old breakwater rock

—From “Breakwater Rock” by Bruce Lawder. Both of his poems in our winter issue are free to nonsubscribers: tinyurl.com/uvz3ymhj

#poetry #poetry lovers #poetry recs #litmag

If it weren’t for Caine’s emotionally charged performance, The Great Escaper would be no better than other films of its ilk: small, literate British films made for a shrinking audience of elderly, literate Anglo-Americans.

Brooke Allen on #TheGreatEscaper tinyurl.com/4brhxvmd

In the shock of the moment a strange thought: the moon is as interested in him as he in it.

—From the short story 'Arch of Flowers' by Mark Jacobs tinyurl.com/bdduxtrr

#shortstory #fiction #stories #fiction reads #litmag

The proximity [of the paintings] makes us more aware than ever...We think about the ways Giorgione’s conception fulfills the implications of Bellini’s, painted at least two decades earlier.

—Karen Wilkin reviews Giorgione and Bellini The Frick Collection tinyurl.com/wy4rtt62

Youthful breakthroughs are a theme of the collection, but the passions of adulthood prove to be menacing...The stories form a social critique of herd instinct and its often appalling consequences.

Cary Holladay on Disruptions by Steven Millhauser Alfred A. Knopf tinyurl.com/yc4cm8v9

He’d climb his ladder, cover words they sprayed.
White clouds on blue would soar.
Some craned to watch the spreading sky he made.

—From 'Gonzalez Grocery' by David Livewell #poems #poetrylovers #litmag

The effect of reading page after page is to feel, quite palpably, how remote human sympathy can be from the language of law and...the consequences of the failure of human empathy.

—Robert Archambeau on The Ferguson Report: An Erasure Nicole Sealey Alfred A. Knopf tinyurl.com/3p64pak6

Alert: no action is required.
The emergency’s nature would have been
disseminated, had there been one.
This has only been a test you may have well
already passed, or failed. Do not
be afraid.

—From 'Annunciation Triptych' by Bruce Beasley tinyurl.com/3pf3vejs #poems #litmag

The Wren, the Wren, a narrative of present-day Dublin, bowls along with the fractured quality of real life, including LinkedIn, period apps, and colonoscopies.

—Cary Holladay on The Wren, the Wren by #AnneEnright W. W. Norton & Company tinyurl.com/yc4cm8v9
#bookreview #bookrecs #litmag

It begins to seem as if [Antoine] is somewhat complicit in the escalation...that he is standing on principle because he can afford to, while the two Spaniards have nothing to lose. The standoff inevitably ends in violence.

—Brooke Allen on The Beasts tinyurl.com/4brhxvmd

He thought he was slacking
But he was practicing Death.

—From “Practicing Death” by Robert McDowell. Full poem: tinyurl.com/53zjvrp2
#poems #poetry #poetry lovers #litmag

Poetry is a way of thinking in addition to everything else, just as comedy is a way of thinking, and in any context Byron deserves serious treatment.

—David Mason on books on #Byron by Jerome McGann Cambridge University Press and Bernard Beatty Liverpool University Press tinyurl.com/4k26fxdk
#BookReview

This we have some control over,
at least temporarily, the lien of grief
paid down by the sweat of our work,
exhaustion our goal.

—From “Clearing Brush” by Robert Cording. Full poem: tinyurl.com/4m8p3wfz

#poems #poetry #poetry lovers #litmag

Josephsohn’s blunt, obsessively worked heads and figures are deliberately uningratiating. The most compelling...threatened to revert to being primordial lumps…Ambiguity is Josephsohn’s strong suit.

—Karen Wilkin on #HansJosephsohn at Skarstedt Gallery tinyurl.com/wy4rtt62

If only we could

pour ourselves, willing and willowy,

into a vessel that can catch daylight.

—From “Reconstructed Sapphic Fragment 24C” by Wendy Drexler. Full poem: tinyurl.com/bddc6rhp #poetry #poems #poetry lovers #poetry reads #poetry rec #litmag

Each scene is sinister and strange...More than once, a soldierly dispute turns lethal, as if the men, deprived of conflict, are driven to create it.

—Cary Holladay on The Stronghold, by Dino Buzzati, tr. Lawrence Venuti NYRB Classics tinyurl.com/yc4cm8v9
#bookreview #bookrecs

As he walked away, Maizey’s heart chased after him, but only for a moment.

—From the “The Half Hour” by Bob Johnson. Full tinyurl.com/y6b3x8r8
#shortstory #story #fiction #litmag

A more intractable problem lies in the source material…Sondheim is inherently an artist of psychological detail [but in Here We Are he] is forced to write music for characters who don’t really exist as characters. —Erick Neher on #Sondheim #muscialreview tinyurl.com/ejrhk42d

I had much to learn before I would be ready
to become the sole practitioner of my own life.

From “Living Situation on Thomes Street” by Michele Herman. Full poem: tinyurl.com/3edk3fwh

#poems #poetry #poetry lovers #poetry rec #poetry reads #litmag