The title of Jason Schneiderman’s collection of poems, Sublimation Point, refers to the temperature at which some solids transform directly into gasses. The first of the book’s two epigraphs is the scientific definition of that term, taken from James A. Plambec’s Thermometry. That definition appears again in the book’s second epigraph—only now in the form […]
Prose
Andrew Keller: The Paradox of Desire (A Review of Histories of Bodies, a poetry collection by Mariko Nagai)
Red Hen Press Want is the body’s fate: sitting while desiring to stand, standing while thinking about sitting. There is no end to our hunger, and once we taste the impracticality of lust, there is no way to quell our pain. If the body wants something, the body does what it must to fulfill its […]
Mercer Bufter: Landscapes I & II by Lesle Lewis
Alice James Books, 2006 When I opened to the Table of Contents of Lesle Lewis’s second book, Landscapes I & II, I received the first in a series of pleasant surprises. There was neither a Section I nor a Section II, but a listing of poems with charming and interesting titles such as “I Love […]
Thomas March: Correspondence by Kathleen Graber
Saturnalia Books The poems in Kathleen Graber’s Correspondence advise a wise discomfort with finality and a suspicion of answers that come too easily. Graber’s meditations meander purposefully, as she yields to the free associative impulse while remaining aware that the first thing that comes to mind is not always the best thing to bear in […]
Susan Briante: Making Place: Betsy Andrews’ New Jersey and John Hennessy’s Bridge and Tunnel
Bearded prophet poets, working-class rock star heroes, and philosophizing mobsters—think of the most eloquent spokespersons for the American character and you’ll end up thinking about New Jersey. From Walt Whitman’s reflections on the Camden docks to Tony Soprano’s view from a car exiting the Holland Tunnel, New Jersey offers a glimpse into our working-class, immigrant, […]
Steven Snyder: Exploring Body Worlds
From October 2005 through April of 2006, The Franklin Institute hosted Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies. During its seven month run over 603,000 visitors attended the exhibition, making it the most well attended traveling museum exhibit in the history of Philadelphia. Before bringing the exhibition to The Franklin […]