Hold It All
In [Proust’s] work we come across an absolute absence of bias, a willingness to know and to understand as many opposing states of the human soul as possible, a capacity for discovering in the lowest…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
What Is Vaster
In the early 1980s Harold Bloom noted about his experience of decades at Yale University that “[t]here is a profound falling away from what I would call ‘text-centeredness” among the current generation of American undergraduates,…
What Is Vaster
In the early 1980s Harold Bloom noted about his experience of decades at Yale University that “[t]here is a profound falling away from what I would call ‘text-centeredness” among the current generation of American undergraduates,…
Minutes & Plans & Moons
I first came to the work of Charles Reznikoff in 2008 when I read his terse “poems” in Holocaust. He had read thousands of pages of war crimes trials transcripts to produce condensed, jarring, essential…
Share the Wealth with Richa Gupta: Taking a Break
In my Share the Wealth, I will share why I took a break to reflect on my experiences and define my purpose after 5 years of working and growing in Corporate America, what triggered the…
Share the Wealth with Richa Gupta: Taking a Break
In my Share the Wealth, I will share why I took a break to reflect on my experiences and define my purpose after 5 years of working and growing in Corporate America, what triggered the…
Sara Roy speaks to Germans
Your sense of guilt, if that is the correct word, should not derive from criticizing Israel. It should reside in remaining silent in the face of injustice as so many of your forebears did before,…
Bob Dylan Approximately: Summer 2019 Course
“That’s all we did in those days. Writing in the back seat of cars and writing songs on street corners or on porch swings, seeking out the explosive areas of life.” —Bob Dylan, 1977 “I…
Arousing Enthusiasm: Allen the Talker
for Laura Lapinski, who makes me laugh while lunching at Medina Grill, walking around the CWE, and hanging out in Left Bank Books There’s 15 to 20 Allen Ginsberg poems I’ve loved, and shared with…
The Irresistible Power of Natural Powers
Having recently perused Jim Forest’s biography and memoir of Dan Berrigan (Playing in the Lions’ Den), I returned to Berrigan’s collection of poems, And the Risen Bread. If I can find five poems in such…