I teach Beowulf and Paradise Lost almost every year, something I wouldn’t do if I didn’t have a thing for epic poetry. From time to time, I’ve wondered why nobody writes epic poems anymore. You know—sprawling, thrilling narrative poems that ordinary people actually want to read. Somebody had to bring the epic back, and with […]
Worldcon
The World Science Fiction Convention was held this year in Denver, and I was lucky enough to be there inside the Colorado Convention Center, rather than on the outside, looking in. Highlights of the conference included the Masquerade contest, the GOH speech by Lois McMaster Bujold (who had some great things to say about genre-jumping), […]
Faun with panpipes
I captured this forest creature outside the Kresge Auditorium at Interlochen Center for the Arts. I’m guessing he’s a faun, not a satyr, since he seems more wholesome than not…
Poetry Fix: W.H. Auden
I teach this poem every spring. I love how clearly Auden sees the loneliness that’s inherent in human suffering: so much of the world’s pain takes place “in a corner, some untidy spot,” while the rest of humanity is too busy to take notice. “Musée des Beaux Arts” About suffering they were never wrong, The […]
Steampunk
This week, Tachyon Publications released Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s great new anthology of all things steampunk, which has a wealth of Victorian gadgets and devices, as well as fine stories by Jay Lake, Paul Filippo, and Ian R. MacLeod. The editors’ introductions are relatively concise, obviously meant to be descriptive rather than scholarly. For the […]
Poetry Fix: Yehuda Amichai
This is the opening stanza of “Try to Remember Some Details.” I love the way Amichai gives great meaning to ordinary things. Try to remember some details. Remember the clothing of the one you love so that on the day of loss you’ll be able to say: last seen wearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat. […]
Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip
Uplifting and yet tinged with a faint melancholy, Tove Jansson’s lovely comic books about the free-spirited Moomintrolls make me very happy. Drawn and Quarterly (D & Q) released The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip in gorgeous oversized hardcovers last fall, and reading them is sheer delight. There are times when you really need Jansson’s family […]
Poetry Fix: Linda Gregg
Loss is balanced with possibility in this elegiac poem by Linda Gregg. Adult I’ve come back to the country where I was happy changed. Passion puts no terrible strain on me now. I wonder what will take the place of desire. I could be the ghost of my old life returning to the places I […]