Some years ago, a friend wrote to me admiring what he called at the time my “bivalve poems.” I thought he meant how a lot of the poems in my new book consisted of two stanzas of equal length, and that was partly true....
When Aida Hernandez was born in 1987 in Agua Prieta, Mexico, the nearby U.S. border was little more than a worn-down fence. Eight years later, Aida’s mother took her and her siblings to live in Douglas, Arizona. By then, the border had become one...
Find an example of wood with your eyes. The floorboards, a door, trim around the window, cutting board, kitchen table, the sycamore there. Imagine it against your knuckles as you rap on it. Feel how hard. Hear the knock. Now, add time. Not that...
“The Topeka School is a novel of exhilarating intellectual inquiry, penetrating social insight, and deep psychological sensitivity . . . To the extent that we can speak of a future at present, I think the future of the novel is here.” —Sally Rooney, author...
As an academic philosopher and the author of many books of poetry, I’m often asked about the relationship between poetry and philosophy. What I’ve usually said in the past is something along these lines: Philosophy and poetry can both be ways of responding to...
This week marked twenty-five years since the Rwandan genocide took place, and author Philip Gourevitch joined NPR's Morning Edition to discuss where things stand in Rwanda today and what...
For as long as I can remember, I have composed poems from the bits of language revolving in my head when no more pressing thoughts intrude. While out for a walk or running an errand, a phrase or stanza might start up and repeat...
In those days I began to see light under every bushel basket, light nearly splitting the sides of the bushel basket. Light came through the rafters of the dairy where the grackles congregated like well-taxed citizens untransfigured even by hope. Understand I was the one underneath the basket. I was...
Suffering the recent loss of her beloved grandfather and newly committed to a career in journalism, Delphine Minoui decided to visit Iran in 1998 for the first time since the revolution—since she was four years old. She would stay for ten years, and
“Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.” —Marianne Moore The best time of year is here again—happy National Poetry Month! Celebrate all month with exclusive Work in Progress features, from essays to conversations to poetry excerpts, honoring the inspiring poets who...
This week’s edition of Work in Progress celebrates Women’s History Month. We asked nineteen of our authors to write about the women who influenced their writing, style, or path as an artist, and their varied responses speak to the way a person or work...
The Light Years is a joyous and defiant coming-of-age memoir set during one of the most turbulent times in American history. Chris Rush was born into a prosperous, fiercely Roman Catholic New Jersey...
Stanley had known it was a mistake to accept his uncle Lech’s offer to apartment-sit in Prague—he’d known it was one of Lech’s proposals, a thinly veiled setup for some invasive, potentially dangerous performance art project. But after Stanley's failed attempt to propose to his...
When Aida Hernandez was born in 1987 in Agua Prieta, Mexico, the nearby U.S. border was little more than a worn-down fence. Eight years later, Aida’s mother took her and her siblings to live in Douglas, Arizona. By then, the border had become one...
Occupying a space between traditional nature writing, memoir, journalism, and prose poetry, Bruce Berger’s essays are beautiful and haunting meditations on the landscape and culture of the American Southwest. Wasteland architecture, mountaintop astronomy, Bach in the wilderness, the mind of the wood rat, the...
We're celebrating Women's History Month with a sweepstakes featuring strong female voices we are proud to publish. Enter for a chance to win a set of the following books:
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- The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor
- Kudos by Rachel Cusk
- The...
When Aatish Taseer first came to Benares, the spiritual capital of Hinduism, he was eighteen, the Westernized child of an Indian journalist and a Pakistani politician, raised among the intellectual and cultural elite of New Delhi. Nearly two decades later, Taseer leaves his life...
In the middle of the Nevada desert stands a solitary poplar tree covered in hundreds of pairs of shoes. Farther along Route 50, a lonely prostitute falls in love with a collector of found photographs. In Las Vegas, an Argentine man builds a peculiar...