"The Quarrel" is a brilliantly written, searing glimpse into the life of Staszek Czyzowski, Polish survivor of World War II camps, and his ruined wife, Kasia. The writer’s exquisite portrait of this stubborn, furious man, rendered without a bit of sentimentality, is so devastating it takes my breath away each time I reread it. The…
Her poetry to me seems quite brilliant. I’ve been reading her recently completed manuscript, Trip Meter, and consider it to be first-rate. How shall I put it—maybe the most forthright thing I can say is that, when it’s published, I’d be honored to write one of the blurbs for its backcover. My blurb would praise…
My recommending Mark Conway to the Emerging Writer’s issue is a bit of a farce, mostly because Mr. Conway was recommended to me first—by virtually everyone who has ever read his poetry. I first encountered Mr. Conway at the M.F.A. program at Bennington College, when rumor of his talent was whispered by an enthusiastic chorus…
Pireeni Sundaralingan depicts a straightforward urgency in everything she writes. She is from Sri Lanka, and her poetry captures elements of that country’s ethnic violence and cultural tensions. However, a credit to her and her poetry, she strives for a language that embraces a sober beauty through precision. Maybe the directness in her voice has…
"My own experience [as a writer] indicates that it is mostly a career of rejection and lost illusions," Evan Connell wrote in a letter to me three years ago. Considering the critical acclaim he’s enjoyed over the past forty years (nominations for the National Book Award in both fiction and poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a…
The following pages constitute a discovery section in that the work is by writers who have not previously had a national appearance. To obtain their work I canvassed such teachers and writers as George Starbuck, Denise Levertov, Kenneth Rexroth, and Tim O'Brien, and drew from my own students at Emerson College. We hope to repeat…
"Sambas" appeared in somewhat different form in an article by Elizabeth Bishop, "On the Railroad Named Delight," The New York Times Magazine, March 7th, 1965. Reprinted by permission. The translation from Satires II, vi, of Horace, was published in Alexander Pope, The Poetry of Allusion by Reuben A. Brower (Oxford University Press, 1959). Reprinted by…
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