Blog / Reviews

Learning History Through the Lens of Sport

February 26, 2022 - By Mark Gorman

Sporting events—like tragic accidents or illnesses, early friendships, or financial crises—are ubiquitous human experiences. Many, maybe most of us suffered through team sports as kids, a few excelling, others turning towards books or the arts or still other fields of competition. Many, maybe most of us also became sports fans, our fascination with the spectacle and affiliations with our teams providing lifelong fun and a comfortable foundation for bar talk and bragging rights.

Professional team allegiances are familial, transgenerational, and tend to stick with us wherever we go, like an accent. When I moved from Detroit to the Northeast, I noted how whole sections of the country seem cut up into regional sports affiliations (Maine is clearly aligned with Boston,...

A Review of An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

February 23, 2022 - By Students of Hampshire College

A Review of Kyle T. Mays, An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States. Beacon Press, 2021

This book review was written as a part of Black Natives: Anti-Blackness, Indigeneity, and Decolonization, a course at Hampshire College which focused on Afro-Indigenous scholarship and lived experiences, engaged through discussion, readings and guest speakers. Class members include: Nathacha Almanzar, Jo Ballard, Robert Caldwell (professor), Charles Dent, Shanti Franzoni, Ben Grady, Claire Guillemin, Quinlyn Holder, Anya Krouse, Cassandra C. Linder, Jaclyn Matellian, Kameron Morgan, Cole Richards, Amerah Sawadogo, Sophia...

A Valentine’s Brewquet

February 14, 2022 - By Marsha Bryant

1
With its wild fermentation and pour,
The Framboise is a beer to adore.
It stays true to the berry
And fizzes so merri-
ly. Tongue-tickling tartness galore.

2
Malty forward, this silky Milk Stout
Shows what creamy dark ales are about.
It’s primarily roasty
(Some chocolate, some coffee),
And finishes creamy side out.

3
Liquid Springtime, this bright Éphémère
Blossoms crisply, lets in light and air.
With its fresh apple taste
And a fine Belgian lace,
‘Tis a cider-meets-wheat ale affair.

4
O the Coconut Hiwa pursues
That fruit’s dance with mocha, accru-
ing a mouthfeel so light
It...

"Chocolat" Soldiering and the White Myth of Recovery

January 27, 2022 - By Michael Thurston

A Review of David Diop, At Night All Blood Is Black. Trans. Anna Moschovakis. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.

Lyricism is, strangely, no stranger to the trenches of the First World War. Whether to contain or to inflame the horrors, writers like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, David Jones and Erich Maria Remarque, Dalton Trumbo and Ford Madox Ford brought rhythm, repetition, and figurative language all to bear on the disquieting experience of the Western Front. Typically, the lyricism counters the horrors: poppies, butterflies, farm fields, or the camaraderie of brothers in arms bear ornament that sets them apart from and (unsuccessfully) shields them from the poisoned...

Birdsong

January 20, 2022 - By Keith Taylor

Meg Kearney’s All Morning the Crows (The Word Works, 2021).

Shelley begins his famous, “To a Skylark”: “Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert. . .” Then for the next few stanzas he works hard to show the “birdiness” of the bird, until he finally gives up in a series of similes (“Like a Poet hidden/In the light of thought . . .”; “Like a high-born maiden/In a palace tower. . .” etc.). By the end of the poem Shelley wants to learn to sing with the bird’s “harmonious madness” so the “world should listen” to him as attentively as he listens to the bird. He’s yet...