Category Archives: Black-Jewish alliances
Black Philip Roth
March 28, 2014 Not biologically black, of course (though what an “African-American biology” might mean is not entirely clear either). Still, Philip Roth might be said to be partly black — through mediation, association, and, perhaps most of all, contention — … Continue reading
Adrienne Rich’s ghazals
February 27, 2014 Her earliest ghazals are in Leaflets, at the very end of the volume, which I must have looked at. But I’m reading them seriously only now — because of Agha Shahid Ali and Call Me Ishmael Tonight, … Continue reading
Robert Pinsky, Ginza Samba
July 24, 2013 For years I hadn’t gone much beyond his translation of the Inferno. I’d noticed a couple of things I didn’t like (might even have gone looking for them), and just stopped there, his own poetry getting all … Continue reading
Michelle Cliff, Adrienne Rich: Animal Sound
April 3, 2013 It’s surprisingly difficult to find a photo of the two of them. In fact I found only one. Yet they’ve been together since 1976, a companionship of almost 40 years. Maybe photos aren’t the point? … Continue reading
Adrienne Rich, June Jordan: bracketing war
March 27, 2013 Adrienne Rich wrote the intro to the collected poems, June Jordan’s, talking mostly about meter, sound patterns, vernacular riffs. Of “March Song,” she writes: “Here she breaks what is actually a dactylic metrical line so that the … Continue reading
Samuel Delany, Marilyn Hacker?
March 20, 2013 He met her on the first day, Bronx High School of Science, September 1956. They got married five years later (in Detroit — Michigan was one of the two states where interracial marriage was not illegal). … Continue reading
Ishmael Reed’s Canada: black, Jewish, indigenous
February 20, 2013 Ishmael Reed isn’t into tragedy, so Flight to Canada is funny about the African-American presence up North. Raven Quickskill is there of course, having flown in “non-stop/ Jumbo jet this A.M. Had Champagne/ Compliments of the Cap’n/ … Continue reading
Children’s Books, Children’s Songs: Gertrude Stein, Paul Robeson
September 5, 2012 Last year Yale University Press brought out Gertrude Stein’s To Do: A Book for Alphabets and Birthdays, never published in her lifetime. Stein had written it as a follow-up to her first children’s book, The World is … Continue reading
Atlantic Sound: Caryl Phillips, Thomas Pynchon, Richard and Mimi Fariña
August 22, 2012 At the end of The Atlantic Sound, Caryl Phillips is in Israel, visiting a community of Black Hebrews, almost 2000 of them, African-Americans who emigrated from the United States. They have given up their U.S. citizenship, but … Continue reading