My aspiration in life is to loaf. These days, life seems to be much ado about aspiration, or so the brand-marketing-image-makers would have us believe. We aspire to fame (and living forever, as that song goes) and wealth, stardom for a second on YouTube, regardless. Me? I want, like Larry, an American character in The…
As we look forward to updating the Ploughshares blog for the new year, we’re also looking back at all the great posts since the blog started in 2009. Our weekly roundups explore the archives and gather past posts around a certain theme to help you jump-start your week. This week’s theme: revision. If you are…
Apart Catherine Taylor Ugly Ducking Presse, May 2012 168 pages $17 Partway through Catherine Taylor’s lyric mélange Apart, there is a moment—just one—at which the reader is permitted to entertain the notion that perhaps the narrative is about to settle down into the story of a woman’s trip back to South Africa; the South Africa…
The Literary Boroughs series will explore little-known and well-known literary communities across the country and world and show that while literary culture can exist online without regard to geographic location, it also continues to thrive locally. Posts are by no means exhaustive and we encourage our readers to contribute in the comment section. The series will run on our…
When I was a child I had action figures. Articulated plastic made to look like men from television and the movies. To make them fight I danced them around each other until I smashed them against each other. I smashed them again and again. None of the grace with which they fought off televised stormtroopers…
The Literary Boroughs series will explore little-known and well-known literary communities across the country and world and show that while literary culture can exist online without regard to geographic location, it also continues to thrive locally. Posts are by no means exhaustive and we encourage our readers to contribute in the comment section. The series will run on our…
As we look forward to updating the Ploughshares blog for the new year, we’re also looking back at all the great posts since the blog started in 2009. This week we’re introducing a new roundup post that explores the archives. Each Monday we’ll gather past posts around a certain theme to help you jump-start your…
The Shelter of Neighbours Eilis Ni Dhuibhne Blackstaff Press, September 2012 288 pages $27.95 One page into Eilis Ni Dhuibhne’s The Shelter of Neighbours I laughed out loud. And then, two stories later, with a carload of train passengers glancing my way, another audible chuckle. My laughing and grinning continued throughout the collection, but each…
Halloween is one of the few holidays where you can take your introverted reading habit and turn it into a public spectacle. So, get those brows up in the air, squeeze in that monocle, and start puffing on your bubble pipe: here are some literary costume ideas. FROM MIRIAM COOK (Marketing Assistant) The Headless Horseman…
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