An inadequate but serviceable list
As Compiled By: Preston Merchant
Only the Soul Knows How to Sing: Selections from Kamala Das
Das stopped writing poetry recently after converting to Islam, though she had been called “the first Hindu woman to write honestly about sexual feelings and love.” … continue reading...
The Oxford India Ramanujan, edited by Molly Daniels-Ramanujan (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004)
As Reviewed By: Preston Merchant
It was a singular moment in the history of Indian letters when A.… continue reading...
Trappings by Richard Howard. Turtle Point Press, 1999. 81 pp. $14.95 paper.
As Reviewed By: Preston Merchant
Richard Howard is the high priest of the most secretive sect of the cult of art, one that, sheltered from the rude gaze of public scrutiny, seeks to reward only the initiate.… continue reading...
Misgivings: My Mother, My Father, Myself by C. K. Williams. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000. 170 pp. $21 hardback.
Repair by C. K. Williams. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999.… continue reading...
Shells by Craig Arnold. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1999. 79 pp. $20 cloth, $12 paper.
Ultima Thule by Davis McCombs. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2000.… continue reading...
Life on Earth by Frederick Seidel. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001. 68 pp. $22 hardback.
As Reviewed By: Preston Merchant
After the World Trade Center towers were destroyed, the New York Times, New York magazine, and other media devoted significant space to the state of the arts, wondering if the usual banalities that pass for American cultural life had now, finally, been rendered null and void.… continue reading...
Agha Shahid Ali (1949-2001)
By: Preston Merchant
After Agha Shahid Ali died on December 8, 2001, of brain cancer, Tehelka, an Indian website, presented an online tribute by his friends and admirers.… continue reading...
As Reviewed By: Preston Merchant
When Anthony Hecht first came to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference to teach a summer workshop in the early 1990’s, one of his students was particularly eager to meet him.… continue reading...
As Reviewed By: Preston Merchant
It was a singular moment in the history of Indian letters when A.… continue reading...
As Compiled By: Preston Merchant[private]
Only the Soul Knows How to Sing: Selections from Kamala Das
Das stopped writing poetry recently after converting to Islam, though she had been called “the first Hindu woman to write honestly about sexual feelings and love.”… continue reading...
Post-9/11 Art & Poetry
Last summer, on the subway from Queens to Manhattan, I noticed the woman next to me reading from a stack of binder-clipped pages–the telltale sign of a novel-in-progress.… continue reading...
