TODAY: 1970, Louise Bogan, the fourth Poet Laureate of the United States and poetry editor of the New Yorker for nearly 40 years, dies.
- On César Aira and his “realist, surrealist, absurd, and philosophical” work. | The New Yorker
- “Many librarians expressed concern that Trump’s campaign rhetoric breached some of the library community’s most fundamental values, including intellectual freedom, diversity, and social responsibility.” On the state of libraries in 2017. | Publishers Weekly
- “It is a portrait of America, a self-portrait of Herriman, and, I believe, the first attempt to paint the full range of human consciousness in the language of the comic strip.” Chris Ware on Krazy Kat. | New York Review of Books
- “Our imaginations are so overpowered and outmaneuvered by the toxic gravity of the global economy that we are happy to amuse ourselves watching the whole world burn instead of doing anything to keep that from happening.” Jessa Crispin on our obsession with dystopias. | The Baffler
- “I dreaded the end of class, when I’d have to look at my phone again—wondering which part of my identity would clash with what fresh news update: partially-disabled, chronically ill, Iranian, American, artist, academic, journalist, woman.” Porochista Khakpour on Trump’s Muslim ban. | CNN
- Kaveh Akbar shares poems from the seven countries—Iran, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, and Syria—impacted by Trump’s executive order that temporarily bans immigrants from those countries. | PBS
- We had passed our youth in a haunted country: A short story by Viet Thanh Nguyen. | Electric Literature
- “Language matters and sometimes, like the word diversity, it becomes an empty container for whatever people want to fill it with.” The full text of Roxane Gay’s keynote speech from the ABA’s Winter Institute. | Publishers Weekly
- “What does it mean to come of age in modern dystopia, alongside the contemporary parallel forces of the Internet and globalization?” On recent bildungsromans by Joni Murphy, Natasha Stag, and Tommy Pico. | The New Inquiry
- On Dr. Seuss, political cartoonist and “America’s first anti-Fascist children’s writer.” | The Atlantic
- When she’s sparkling, high and pretty, it seems so thrilling to be her: Emily Gould profiles “unhealthy health writer” Cat Marnell. | The Cut
- The first issue of SUBLEVEL, which was co-edited by Janice Lee and Maggie Nelson, features writing by Hilton Als, Solmaz Sharif and Rickey Laurentiis in conversation, and more. | SUBLEVEL
- Valeria Luiselli on attempting to narrate a novel from the perspective of a potted plant, the etymologically precise sense of enthusiasm, and loving Harlem from afar. | Creative New York
- BuzzFeed has partnered with the New York City Mayor’s Office to launch the One Book, One New York project and have five contenders for the first selection. | NYC.gov, BuzzFeed Books
Also on Lit Hub:
Mark Greif on what Thoreau can teach us about resisting Trump · How repealing the ACA will hurt freelancers and the outsize damage it does for writers at the margins · Understanding America through Marilynne Robinson · Muckracking journalists, antiwar activists, and more: 11 memoirs by 20th-century American radicals · On South Park and the dark comedy of our deepest fears · Why we need more trans protagonists in children’s books · The Asian detective novel: from racist caricature to authentic representation · On the multiplicity of stories in the West and life at the front lines of the climate crisis · When a “Promised Land” breaks its word: Real Americans aren’t nativist bigots · Donald Trump has made it hard to be a New England Patriots fan
