Focus: Telling Real Lives — June-July 1994

Telling Real Lives

Volume 16 Number 2
June-July 1994

PICKETING THE ZEITGEIST

SUPERFLUOUS?
Rochelle Ratner

ART

WORLD AND SPIRIT INTERTWINED
Michael Heller reviews Remaining in Light by John Taggart

MUSIC

HYPERVELOCITY OF THE NOTES
Jason Horwitch reviews Zen Arcade by Hüsker Dü

FILM

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO ALTMAN
Jonathan Baumbach reviews Short Cuts, directed by Robert Altman

FOCUS: TELLING REAL LIVES

AN ETERNAL REBEL
Raymond D. Souza reviews Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas, translated by Dolores M. Koch

THE REVELATION OF H.D.
Helane Levine-Keating reviews Asphodel by H.D., edited by Robert Spoo and A Great Admiration: H.D./Robert Duncan Correspondence 1950-1961, edited by Robert J. Bergholf

EACH ENTRY SOURED
Sidney Feshbach reviews Reflections on James Joyce: Stuart Gilbert’s Paris Journal, edited by Thomas F. Staley and Randolph Lewis

WHAT WE FEEL
Corinne Robins reviews To Feel These Things by Leonard Michaels

INSIGHTS AND FELICITOUS PHRASES
Jack Anderson reviews Blood Work: Selected Prose by Ron Padgett

THE DYBBUKS MUST TALK
Gary Lenhart reviews Looking for Genet: Literary Essays and Reviews by Alfred Chester, edited by Edward Field

CONFESSIONAL BUT RESTRAINED
Fred Moramarco reviews Autobiographies by Alfred Corn and Living Wills, New and Selected Poems by Cynthia Macdonald

FINE LEVEL-HEADED HONESTY
Ruth Valentine reviews The Red Line by Betsy Sholl

DEMONIC ENERGY AND YEARNING
Regina Weinreich reviews Grace Beats Karma: Letters from Prison 1958–60 by Neal Cassidy

FEATURE: COWBOYS

COWBOY POETRY
Scott Preston reviews Cowboy Curmudgeon and Other Poems by Wallace McRae and And As I Rode Out on the Morning by Buck Ramsey

FEATURE: NOSTALGIC FICTION

A GREAT CATHEDRAL OF NOSTALGIA
E. Leona Gregg reviews Boulevard of Heroes by Eduardo García Aguilar, translated by Jay Anthony Miskowiec

THE PROBLEM OF GENRE
Max Yeh reviews The Historian: Six Fantasies of the American Experience by Eugene K. Garber and Alias Olympia: A Woman’s Search for Manet’s Notorious Model and Her Own Desire by Eunice Lipton

FEATURE: HAWAII

HAWAIIAN-STYLE MIXED STEW
Robin L. Bott reviews The Watcher of Waipuna and Other Stories by Gary Pak

BOOK REVIEWS

HARSH JUDGMENT
Kenneth Warren reviews Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poerns by Yusef Komunyakaa and Edificio Sayonara by John Yau

A FLOURISHING CENTER
David Kirby reviews The Fire in All Things by Stephen Yenser and My Alexandria by Mark Doty

TURNING THINGS OVER
Adrienne McCormick reviews Storm Pattern by Greg Pape and Fanatic Heart by Deborah Pope

OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS
David R. Slavitt reviews Cultivating Excess by Lori Anderson, Selected Poems by Derek Mahon, and The Path to Fairview: New and Selected Poems by Julia Randall

SENSE OF SIN
Miriam Levine reviews What Saves Us by Bruce Weigl and The Rapture of Matter by Frankie Paino

HUMANITY’S NOISY, GROTESQUE MUSIC
David Latané reviews The Discipline: New and Selected Poems, 1980-1992 by David Citino

SHARP DIFFERENCES
Robert Buttel reviews Selected Poems and Translations: 1969-1991 by William Matthews and Radio Sky by Norman Dubie

THE GRADUAL DISPATCH OF THE WORLD
Curt Rode reviews A Circus of Want by Kevin Stein and Hurricane Walk by Diann Blakely Shoaf

SHARED MUSICS OF SPOKEN AMERICAN
Armand Schwerner reviews The Zebra Storyteller by Spencer Holst