Becoming Beatrice
Dante adored her so much that he cast her as his guide in the Divine Comedy. But who was Beatrice Portinari?
Surrealism at 100: A Reading List
On the centennial of the founding of Surrealism, this reading list examines its radical beginnings, its mass popularity, and its continued evolution.
A “Genre-Bending” Poetic Journey through Modern Korean History
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictée is an experiment in both lyric and epic modernism that uses form to invoke the tragedy of the wartime partition of Korea.
I Hear America Singing
Japanese American poet Garrett Hongo is a guiding spirit to a glorious cacophony, an exuberant collective thrum made of different tongues and peoples.
A Garden of Verses
As commonplace books evolved into anthologies, they developed reputations as canonical works, their editors curating tomes as vibrant as the loveliest bouquets.
Make Your Own Poetry Anthology
Teaching students to make their own poetry anthologies in the form of a commonplace book gives them insight into the power, and problems, of curation.
Shakespeare’s First Published Work
Celebrated for his plays, Shakespeare actually opened his writing career with a derivative poem.
José Garcia Villa, an American Poet Ahead of His Time
While Villa’s otherness created an opening for his work in the US, American critics ultimately held both his modernism and his nationality against him.
A Tale of Two Visionaries
What roiled the mind of Nebraska poet John Neihardt with whom Black Elk, the iconic Lakota holy man, shared his story?
A Centennial Celebration of Spring and All
William Carlos Williams's hybrid work of poetry and prose both upended narrative conventions and delighted in the wondrous, unifying force of imagination.