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Staff Picks: ‘Bunting’s Persia,’ Dickinson’s Manuscripts

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This Week’s Reading

In you’re in the New York area, tomorrow is the last day to see the unmissable exhibition of rare Emily Dickinson manuscripts and letters at Poets House. This is the first time much of this material has been on view; who knows when it will be again. It’s also worth making the trip to see poet and artist Jen Bervin’s striking quilts, which are stitched according to the symbols and corresponding variant words in Dickinson’s fascicles. —Nicole Rudick

In the early 1930s, the young English poet Basil Bunting taught himself Farsi with a dictionary and a copy of the Iranian national epic, the Shahnameh, given to him by Ezra Pound. (“It’s an easy language,” Bunting explained, “if it’s only for reading you want it.”) The translations he made are collected in Bunting’s Persia, a slim book, including excerpts from the Shahnameh and lyrics like this one by Sa’di:

Without you I’ve not slept, not once in the garden
nor cared much whether I slept on holly or flock,
lonely to death between one breath and the next
only to meet you, hear you, only to touch …

I read it on Valentine’s Day. —Lorin Stein

This week I found myself fascinated by the New York City Graffiti & Street Art Project, an experiment by the library of Lewis & Clark college that charts the most interesting examples of street art across the city, sorted by neighborhood, media type, subject, and more. —Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn

I just stumbled upon this breezy interview with cartoonist Lee Lorenz from last year. Part of The Comics Journals “Know Your New Yorker Cartoonist” column, the conversation is an endearing remembrance of a life in pictures, with the added pleasure of some insider gossip. —Josh Anderson

Try Pär Lagerkvist’s The Dwarf for a healthy dose of fiery medieval homuncular misanthropy. Great reading material for long, slow queues, crowded subway rides where even the conductor is exasperated, and angry times in general. —Emma del Valle

Seventeenth-century love letters, Latin bibles, a Shelley manuscript, and English children’s stories: I’ve suddenly discovered the Morgan Library’s blog. —D.F.M.

It’s official: I have an extreme case of Linsanity. —Natalie Jacoby