May 2008
The Beauty of Failure
In the first of two essays on Jay Wright’s new Dalkey Archive books, Chad Reynolds describes the work of an old poet not half ready to go under the earth and still coming to terms with what it means to live on the surface in Polynomials and Pollen.
How to Wreck a Planet
Jeanette Winterson has made a career of pushing her prose poetry into different worlds. But by abandoning Earth altogether, has she left her readers stranded? Karen Vanuska heretically challenges The Stone Gods.
An Earnest Proposal to Dmitri Nabokov
After years of indecision, Dmitri Nabokov has at last decided to publish The Original of Laura, the incomplete novel his father asked that he burned. But before the damage is done, Amelia Glaser humbly offers a plan that would satisfy the ravenous legion of Nabokov lovers while simultaneously honoring Vladimir’s request.
Many Voyages Home
As Tennyson told us a century ago, Odysseus has become a name for wandering and a template for every storyteller since. In Zachery Mason’s evocative first novel, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, old myths find new words for the modern era; Steve Donoghue describes that newer world.
Lunch with Herbert
A poem by Clayton Eshleman.
Green
Open Letters continues its serialization of Adam Golaski’s innovative translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with this, the fourth installment.
The Dancing Congress
Napoleon came home from Elba to find his wine barrels dry, his floors scuffed, and a host of minor nobodies redistricting his continent. This was the celebrated Congress of Vienna, and Thomas J. Daly takes us through the maneuvers of Vienna 1814 by David King.
Kleinzahleresque
August Kleinzahler is not an old man, yet Sleeping It Off in Rapid City is his fourth Selected Poems. John Cotter explores why you’ll need the old ones too and why you may find yourself with a use for the word “Kleinzahleresque.”
Shining Wild Things
Shadow Country is the culmination of a thirty-year obsession with the notorious Everglades pioneer Edgar J. Watson. Sam Sacks treks into the beautiful and blood-soaked territory of Peter Matthiessen’s magnum opus.
Anything that Moves:
The Tudors on Film
More than any other dynasty in history, the Tudors are ready for their close-up. In this installment of his “Year with the Tudors,” Steve Donoghue leads us on a royal progress through film archives to access the heart and stomach of these undying superstars.
Wild World
We know that we can digitize books, but is it possible to translate digital texts back onto paper? Carolyn Grantham explores this and other 21st-century dilemmas in her review of Sarah Boxer’s Ultimate Blogs
One Encounter:
George & Me
What do you do when the courageous trailblazing author who formed your youth is accused of an unspeakable crime? John G. Rodwan, Jr. does what Orwell would have done, weighed the evidence and let the chips fall where they may.
Taming Reality
Siri Hustvedt’s fictional variations on the real lives that surround her are her means of unearthing the secrets under the surface of truth. Megan Doll has followed her trance and reports here on The Sorrows of an American.
Absent Friends:
Gentle Poet
At a poetry reading on the Palatine 2,000 years ago, you’d have spent a week’s pay to hear him read. Today he’s unknown, except to our Steve Donoghue (and a few of our readers, no doubt). Here, after a long time gone, is the Roman poet Tibullus.
The OLM Quiz: Making Amends
The skeins of modesty have obviously been frayed in last month’s Open Letters Quiz; our latest installment is therefore all about trust—but is no less brutally hard.
Our cover photo, “Bell Atlantic,” comes to us from Lianne Habinek, a regular contributor to Open Letters whose photographs can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wind-up-bird/
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