TOBI'S DESK

Dedicated to learning the rules so... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2jULwT6

I feel like I’m…... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2kPhjmT

I am blessed with loving family and friends,... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2jtNUBN

In God we trust... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2jtl4Sd

well here comes that feeling again... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2keI5p6

Help... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2keFGea

My model for a day is a gorgeous brunette... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2kOBOAj

Place a little pebble in your hand.... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2kejalo

Action pack... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2kO2yB7

Ishmael Reed, 2015 The two Writers at Work interviews from our Fall 2016 issue are now online in full, free to read for subscribers and nonsubscribers alike. In the  Art of Poetry No. 100 ,  Ishmael Reed  is interviewed by Chris Jackson ; Reed discusses growing up in Buffalo, the search for “new mythologies” that led him to write  Mumbo Jumbo , and his concerns for young writers of color: Combative writing has always been our tradition, even when we try to avoid it. I recently saw an article in the  New York Times   about Cave Canem, the group of black poets, and one of them described the trend in black literature as a “shift out of the ‘I’m a black man in America and it’s hard’ mode into the idea of ‘you are who you are, so that’s always going to be part of the poem.’ ” As if the tradition of writing about black suffering—I’ve been ’buked and scorned and all that—was dead. But why can’t you write about the hardships that black men and women face in everyday life? It was certainl

Chords they penetrate... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2jspj0o

On June 23rd the people chose... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2jSEfmN

I work hard most days... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2jSCqGQ

On Being Seen... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2kNIZJb

Nadal and Federer at the Australian Open final. Federer and Nadal shake hands after the blistering final match of this year’s Australian Open.   Every possible end to this year’s Australian Open would’ve made a story for the ages. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and pick one. Venus Williams at thirty-six, winning her first major in nine years. Serena Williams at thirty-four, returning to top form, winner her record twenty-third major title and reclaiming the number-one ranking. Roger Federer at thirty-five, winning an improbable eighteenth major title after a sixth-month hiatus, and against his one true rival. Rafa Nadal, at thirty—having seemed, in recent seasons, gnawed on by Father Time, with all the guilty, wide-eyed ravenousness of Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son —unexpectedly capturing his fifteenth major title and making his strongest claim yet to being the greatest player the men’s tour has ever seen. Every possible outcome would’ve hit some sweet spot. The Australian Open was

From the uncertain depths of diplomacy... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2kNtnoW

His lardy arse ... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2kRAT1o

my legs are closed now... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2jSd23O

On paths we cross,... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2jA123F

 ... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2kN0kBU

How come people cannot find the time , to demonstrate against groomers . How come people say no... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2ko3uOL

Let these few silent words lay between us... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2jR3DJU

The world and its dog seem determined to dump... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2kOigz8

enriching the earth... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2knNJY4

My mind’s a blank... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2kMgOtT

He dressed her in velvet,... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2jrarza

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.   In anticipation of Casablanca ’s seventy-fifth anniversary this year, I’ve made a sustained attempt to reappraise the significance of the film and its illustrious afterlife—in particular how the film, which involved so many European-refugee actors and studio professionals, resonates in the current political climate, with the increasing turn to the right, toward protectionism and isolationism, and a global refugee crisis of a similar scale. But in searching out some of the lesser-known, and least likely, voices on the subject, I’ve been reminded of another critical reappraisal of the film, one that dates back several decades and that hasn’t really received much attention. Tucked away in My Lunches with Orson , those delicious recorded snatches of midday schmoozing between directors Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles (edited by Peter Biskind and published in 2013), is a late chapter titled “Gary Cooper turns me right into a girl!” in which Welles adm

“You’re pushing me to the edge, can’t you see?” said my poem.... from Write Out Loud Poetry Blogs http://ift.tt/2kmZTkr

Robert Heinecken, TV Newswomen (Faith Daniels and Barbara Walters) (detail), 1986; image via Aperture   Get a load of this, people—it’s the story so unbelievable, so astonishingly perverse, that George Eliot’s family doesn’t want you to know about it! I’m about talking about the size of her hands—or of one of her hands, anyway. Kathryn Hughes has the hot scoop: “ One day in the 1840s a young woman in her midtwenties was talking to her neighbor in a genteel villa on the outskirts of Coventry . At some point in the conversation Mary Ann Evans stretched out her right hand ‘with some pride’ to demonstrate how much bigger it was than her left. It was the legacy, she explained, of having spent her teenage years making butter and cheese on her family’s farm, eight miles outside the city … Over the next fifty years George Eliot’s increasingly genteel descendants periodically issued stern denials about the great novelist’s labors in the dairy. There was, they maintained, nothing remotely

Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich put together a reading list to help children understand the global refugee experience, and  Kaveh Akbar compiled a list of poems from the seven countries — Iran, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria — impacted by President Donald Trump’s executive order. Meanwhile,  Kieran Hebden  (a.k.a.  Four Tet ) has been curating a Spotify playlist of music from those countries as well. The post Global Crises, International Art appeared first on The Millions . from The Millions http://ift.tt/2kmSzor

Michael Kelleher is the director of the Windham Campbell Prize, an annual prize awarded in recognition of a writer’s “extraordinary body of work.” Since its inception, the award, which comes with a $165,000 cash prize, has made good on its mission to embrace the diversity of the global literary community. In 2015, all three winners […] from Brittle Paper http://ift.tt/2jPLb4f

1. Huck Out West The “Wild West” is ultimately a mythological creation, one filled with recognizable motifs: cowboys, 10-gallon hats, revolvers, horses, lassos, cacti, saloons, vast landscapes, and so on. It was the American answer to the European world of medieval chivalry, providing a stage for the stories of many great novelists and filmmakers of the past 150 years. To most people, the Wild West is synonymous with action and adventure, which is why a reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) set in the Wild West offered so much potential. Robert Coover picks up where Mark Twain left off, telling of Huck’s experience immersed in the merciless American frontier. Coover’s Huck is certainly consistent with Twain’s: an enterprising, thoughtful youth whose good nature can leave him exposed to manipulation and danger. The author also takes naturally to the dialect of Huckleberry Finn , evoking the slack-jawed voices of the Midwest. Ultimately, Huck Out West bores more tha

We have Ikhide Ikheloa to thank for introducing us to Christiana Mbakwe, who he very aptly referred to as “Achebe’s Obierika in pumps.” A few weeks ago, she shared a series of tweets, in which she raised tough questions about feminism through the lens of a personal history that begins with her grand-mother. These 34 tweets amount […] from Brittle Paper http://ift.tt/2kmm3mJ

New this week:  4321 by Paul Auster ;  The Animators   by  Kayla Rae Whitaker ;  Mr. Iyer Goes to War   by  Ryan Lobo ;  The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping   by  Aharon Appelfeld ; and  The Evenings   by  Gerard Reve . For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview . The post Tuesday New Release Day: Auster; Whitaker; Lobo; Appelfeld; Reve appeared first on The Millions . from The Millions http://ift.tt/2kNc4HP

On January 26, Nigerian author Buchi Emecheta passed away at the age of 72. [read here if you missed it.] Fellow authors took to social media to celebrate her life and the significance of her work. Chimamanda Adichie: Buchi Emecheta. We are able to speak because you first spoke. Thank you for your courage. Thank […] from Brittle Paper http://ift.tt/2klT2ro

“Everyone agreed that something had gone wrong; Kunle had died this way: getting to his twenty-second birthday, Kunle who hated fish, had slumped at a fish market and died.”   ON THE DAY that I, Tola, was to buy a soul, my father walked into my room and informed me that there were no souls […] from Brittle Paper http://ift.tt/2km3HCr

in the brothels of the sky you will find heavy set houri who sees your rod as the pathway to eternal bliss who sees a pestle stirring the cosmic soup beyond good and evil beyond earth and heaven paint like a blind artist!         ************** Post image by takafumi hagiwara via Flickr. About the […] from Brittle Paper http://ift.tt/2kJtXE2

“#24,” an exhibition of paintings by Rebecca Morris, is showing through February 25 at Mary Boone Gallery . Rebecca Morris, Untitled (#01-15) , 2015, oil on canvas, 95″ x 95″ Untitled (#01-12) , 2012, oil on canvas, 80″ x 69″ Untitled (#01-13) , 2013, oil on canvas, 87″ x 80″ Untitled , 2015, oil and spray paint on canvas, 52″ x 52″ from The Paris Review http://ift.tt/2kIzt9Z

  I’ve started to realize how homely I’ve become. I look like crap. I need a total makeover. When I was a teenager, and then into my twenties, I would never have let this happen. Back then, I was mad for makeup. I read Glamour and Seventeen with the intensity of a Talmud scholar. It was the pre-hippie days, and no one wanted to look natural. Being a young woman meant knowing about eyelash curlers, and the right hairdo for your face shape (there were only three choices: round, triangle, or square), and how to cover acne pustules with thick sheets of foundation. I worshipped at the altar of every department-store cosmetic counter. With the right mascara, lipstick, and face powder, my life had limitless possibilities.  Now, determined to recapture the promises once offered to me by Revlon, Estée Lauder, and Max Factor, I returned to my favorite beauty magazines, but nothing resonated. Long ago, I had come to grips with the fact that my face is shaped like a parallelogram—a new haird

Last November, New York Review Books published Ruth Scurr’s John Aubrey: My Own Life . Aubrey, who died in 1697, is remembered for his Brief Lives , a collection of short biographies with a candor and color that enlarged the possibilities of the genre. Scurr has assembled an “autobiography” for Aubrey from remnants of his letters, manuscripts, and books, setting his sensitivities against the turmoil of Restoration-era England. He emerges as an empathetic, surprisingly modern figure.  Below, Lucas Adams illustrates some of his favorite entries from  My Own Life.     Lucas Adams is an editor at New York Review Comics. See more of his work here . from The Paris Review http://ift.tt/2kGGzMa

Over the last few years, I’ve developed a certain pattern for whenever Jonathan Safran Foer or his writing come up in conversation. First, I admit that I’ve read all of his books and liked them. Second, I provide the caveat that I was a teenager when read them and haven’t looked at them since. Third, I say that I still stand by Eating Animals and find it to be an interesting piece of literary journalism, but that, of course, I no longer have a high opinion of his fiction. Much of the literary community seems to feel the same way, if they were ever on his side in the first place. Cursory research indicates that even at the beginning of his career he was a polarizing figure, winning awards and making end-of-the-years lists alongside middling reviews in The New Yorker and The New York Times . This time around, it seems a little more universal. Here I Am received negative reviews from The Boston Globe , The Atlantic , The New Republic , and many other prominent outlets. Is the book t

Before I officially moved to Lagos I was quite certain that prettiness was not a question of when but where. It was neither a question of properly blending the different layers of my contour with the perfect highlighter, nor the length of my lashes. Rather it was dependent upon who was doing the seeing – […] from Brittle Paper http://ift.tt/2kM3bu1

Recommended Reading: Four stories by Lydia Davis . The post Lydia Davis Reads appeared first on The Millions . from The Millions http://ift.tt/2kjtv1p

Robert Smithson, Broken Circle/Spiral Hill   Chris Ware has been reading a lot of Krazy Kat , as we all should in these trying times. In the Kat and his creator, George Harriman, Ware sees a tacit African-American tradition: “ Krazy Kat has been described as a parable of love, a metaphor for democracy, a ‘surrealistic’ poem, unfolding over years and years . It is all of these, but so much more: it is a portrait of America, a self-portrait of Herriman, and, I believe, the first attempt to paint the full range of human consciousness in the language of the comic strip … I may be in the minority here, but I really think that most if not all readers of  Krazy Kat during Herriman’s lifetime would have had a hard time thinking of Krazy as anything but  African-American. Krazy’s patois, social status, stereotypical ‘happy-go-lucky despite it all’ disposition all funnel into a rather pointed African-American identity.” Robert Smithson’s Broken Circle/Spiral Hill is classic land art:

Last week, hundreds of thousands of women gathered in various cities in the US and around the world to march in support of women’s rights. The march in Washington, D.C, which kickstarted the movement drew an enormous crowd.  Chimamanda Adichie, a feminist icon of note, was there to lend her support. She shared photos of […] from Brittle Paper http://ift.tt/2jNsuMg

Brown University is hosting an African Writers Festival in about two weeks. The event is titled “The New Global Africa: Confrontations and Connections” and explores the ways in which African writers are redefining what it means to be a public intellectual. Award winning Nigerian author Chika Unigwe, who is also professor at Brown University, is […] from Brittle Paper http://ift.tt/2jlXBlM

1. There was extra time left at the end of the class and our Koran/Religious Studies teacher was allowing us to quietly do whatever we liked until break time. This was seventh grade and I’d never had a teacher remotely like her. She was young and pretty, unlike our other Divinity teachers who made it a point to dress badly and look bland. She had serene, generous eyes and her bright colored manteaus and overcoats were always tasteful and carefully ironed out. It took me a while to gather enough courage to go up to her desk, a crumpled piece of paper clammy from my sweaty palm in hand. Unfolding the balled-up note I asked nervously, “What does this mean?” It was a word I didn’t know how to pronounce, so I’d written it out – اگزیستانسیالیسم, existentialism . I caught the look of shock in our teacher’s face as her eyes darted back and forth between me and the piece of paper. Then in a cold tone she asked, “Where did you find this word?” I still hadn’t realized there might be something s