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Robert Heinlein, the prolific author of Starship Troopers and other sci-fi works, coined the term “speculative fiction” in 1947. In the essay, Heinlein defines “speculative fiction” as “the story embodying the notion ‘Just suppose—’ or ‘What would happen if—’.” For Heinlein, this narrative hypothesis creates “a new framework for human action.”
The waning months of President Obama’s presidency coupled with the populist ascendancy of Donald Trump has seemingly expedited feelings of fear, loathing, and endless uncertainty among many. To some, Obama’s ascendancy was supposed to usher in a post-racial democracy that would rescue, resuscitate, and render the American dream (or pieces of it, at least) reachable to the average American citizen. Unfortunately, Trump’s nativist rhetoric and crypto-fascism synched with the durability of racism, generational poverty, and American empire-building has imposed newer and more serious life-challenges into the lives of Black Americans and poor and working class people from all walks of life.
Though Bartleby, the Scrivener was published in 1853 and documents a world that’s vastly different from our own, it’s a strangely prescient text. The words and situations may be dated, but the sentiment feels familiar: it’s a horror story you’d expect to hear in our era of modernity.
During my adolescence, I fell in love with a language before I fell in love with a human being. In high school, in India, a former colony of the British, I came to like – and then love – the English language. The first words I had learned as a baby were Bengali.
When I arrived in Florence for an extended trip, I was determined not to look like a tourist. I wanted to carry a leather-bound notebook and sit at sidewalk cafes drinking cappuccinos and looking thoughtful. Mostly, I wanted to read The Decameron and the last two books of The Divine Comedy with a Tuscan backdrop.
When I first set out to find C.P. Cavafy’s maternal home five years ago, my friends and I figured heading to the local church in Neochori (present day Yeniköy) would yield the best results. The Alexandrian Greek poet had spent three years of his life, from 1882 to 1885, in the then Greek-dominated village in…
In “Trances of the Blast,” the poem from the book by the same name, Mary Ruefle begins with a question and answer: “What is the code for happiness?/Blackberries forever.”
Although the book—Trances of the Blast—came out several years ago, this particular line has haunted me ever since.
New York City has as many events as event list-serves, and a person who subscribes to a bajillion of the latter can find ways to attend the former for a reduced rate, if not for free. Just such a person, I often attend these events alone, scribbling notes for whatever friends can’t make it.
Wendy Wisner writes from the heart about parenthood, from pregnancy and childbirth to the joyous hard work of raising children. In her poems and prose, she evokes the wonders and struggles of daily life as a mother in language that is clear and sharp, tender yet honest about the complications of our connections across generations.
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