A review of City of Champions: A History of Triumph and Defeat in Detroit by Stefan Szymanski and Silke-Maria Weineck 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 . . .
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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 . . .
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A review of Visions of Crumbling Houses and Conversations with the Wind Taking Flight by Gianna Celati. In the “Foreword” to his Conversations with the Wind Taking Flight, Gianni Celati states that: Writing is a conversation with whoever will read us, and conversations carry us like the wind—we never really know what the . . .
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1With its wild fermentation and pour,The Framboise is a beer to adore.It stays true to the berryAnd fizzes so merri-ly. Tongue-tickling tartness galore. 2Malty forward, this silky Milk StoutShows what creamy dark ales are about.It’s primarily roasty(Some chocolate, some coffee),And finishes creamy side out. 3Liquid Springtime, this bright ÉphémèreBlossoms crisply, lets in light and air.With its . . .
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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 . . .
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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 . . .
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‘Twas the midst of December: there came forth a cryFrom us beer drinkers wond’ring which brews we shall buyFor festivities, feasting, for sitting by fires.It’s the holidays! Taste all the good that transpires.‘Tis the time to be stocking your holiday shelfWith the richly full-flavored beers. (Move over, elf!) First Diwali and Hanukkah . . .
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A Review of Simon Frost’s Reading, Wanting, and Broken Economics: A Twenty-First-Century Study of Readers and Bookshops in Southampton around 1900 (State University of New York Press, 2021). Studies in the field of book history hold a perverse fascination for me. I can never approach them solely as an academic, for the . . .
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(Cover design by Deste Roosa; cover art by Judith Wolfe, detail from Dans la Lumière de Glace 1, from the series Hommage à Charlotte Delbo, 2013.) A Review of Ghislaine Dunant, Charlotte Delbo: A Life Reclaimed, translation and introduction by Kathryn Lachman (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2021). The work . . .
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Limericks for Oktoberfest Oktoberfest beckons anewWith festivities, hullabaloo.I’ll parse Märzens for youSo you’ll know what to doAt your bottle shop picking out brew. If you can’t fly to Munich, don’t worry—American brewers have scurriedTo release in due seasonThe beer lover’s reasonFor drinking outdoors before flurries. When it’s Autumn and weather behaves,Tis the . . .
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