Charles Simic

Ghost Ship

a poem

The Poet’s Pencil

In an age of computers and smartphones when pencils are becoming extinct, be sure to be kind and considerate should you happen to come across a stub dropped in some public library. You can be sure that it has a history.

Poems from the Abyss

When asked about his home, Czesław Miłosz said that he came from another planet, another time

Year One: President Ubu

Since Trump became president, every time I told myself this man is bonkers, I remembered Ubu Roi, realizing how the story of his presidency and the cast of characters he has assembled in the White House would easily fit into Alfred Jarry’s play.

A Voice for the Voiceless

Philip Levine felt a constant moral indignation about the treatment of workers

In the Snow

a poem

Remembering Bob Silvers

On the late editor of The New York Review

Must Lerner Connect?

Serbia's Lying Problem

Serbian opposition politician and human rights activist Vesna Pešić explains the implications of rule by lies and the similarities between the Serbian and American situations.

Inexhaustible & Brilliant

Dizzy in the Daylight

Jazz Festival is a thick book of black-and-white photographs by Jim Marshall, one of the best-known American rock photographers, who first became famous by taking pictures of jazz musicians.

Expendable America

The Ship of State is sinking and a rooster is chasing a hen in a neighbor’s yard. A woman is hanging her husband’s underwear on the laundry line and singing to herself. How can that be?

Syria with One Eye

Since the beginning of Syria’s civilian uprising in 2011, the Syrian poet Rasha Omran has been a fearless critic of the Bashar al-Assad regime and the failure of Arab intellectuals to denounce its crimes.

The Consolations of Strangeness

Jana Prikryl’s poetry shows a probing intellect alert to the strangeness of our lives, as well as our own estrangement from ourselves.

You Laugh Uncontrollably

In New Hampshire

As to what happens after New Hampshire, in the other primaries, we have little reason to hope that things will get better, no matter who wins.

Sticking to Our Guns

Every country in the world has dimwits and crooks in politics, but no country treats them with greater respect than we do—or with such gutlessness.

Bernie & Hillary & the Future

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Swept Away