{"id":123426,"date":"2018-03-27T13:00:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T17:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=123426"},"modified":"2018-03-27T11:04:21","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T15:04:21","slug":"redux-a-mild-olfactory-hallucination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/27\/redux-a-mild-olfactory-hallucination\/","title":{"rendered":"Redux: A Mild Olfactory Hallucination"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week, the editors of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. You can have these unlocked\u00a0pieces delivered straight to your inbox every\u00a0Sunday by\u00a0signing up for the Redux newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s officially spring, right? This week, we help to hasten winter\u2019s end with a story of knowing when to stop, from\u00a0John Hall Wheelock<\/a>\u2019s interview;\u00a0Ben Lerner\u2019s appropriately named story \u201cFalse Spring<\/a>\u201d; and, a staff favorite,\u00a0Diane di Prima\u2019s poem \u201cSong for Spring Equinox<\/a>,\u201d in which we see the season\u2019s \u201cslightly boring\u201d side.<\/p>\n

John Hall Wheelock, The Art of Poetry No. 21<\/a>
\nIssue no. 67 (Fall 1976)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

There is such a thing as carrying it too far. John Butler Yeats, the painter, the father of William Butler Yeats, would start out painting a springtime landscape in April but was so critical that summer would find him still working on it, which required changing it to a summer landscape, and eventually it would end up as a snow scene. He ruined his paintings by working over them too long. You can do the same with a poem. You\u2019ve got to be the judge of when to stop.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

False Spring<\/a>
\nBy Ben Lerner
\nIssue no. 205\u00a0(Summer 2013)<\/em><\/p>\n

I found a bench and looked at the magnificent bridge\u2019s necklace lights in the sky and reflected in the water and imagined a future surge crashing over the iron guardrail. I thought I could smell the light, syrupy scent of cottonwoods blooming prematurely, confused by a warmth too early in the year even to be described as a false spring, but that might have been a mild olfactory hallucination triggered by memory. Across the water, a helicopter was carefully lowering itself into the downtown heliport by South Street, a slow strobe on its tail.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Song for Spring Equinox<\/a><\/header>\n
By Diane di Prima
\nIssue no. 44 (Fall 1968)
\n<\/em><\/header>\n

It is the first day of spring, the children are singing
\n(they are supposed to be sleeping) the clock is ticking
\nthe cats are waiting for supper, one of them pregnant
\nkittens to herald the spring, nothing is blooming
\nnothing seems to bloom much around farms, just hayfields and corn
\nfarms are too pragmatic, I look at ads
\nfor hydrangea bushes, which I hate they remind me of brooklyn \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you like what you read, why not\u00a0become a subscriber<\/span><\/a>? You\u2019ll get instant access\u00a0to our entire sixty-five-year archive, not to mention four issues of new interviews, poetry, and fiction.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every week, the editors of\u00a0The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. You can have these unlocked\u00a0pieces delivered straight to your inbox every\u00a0Sunday by\u00a0signing up for the Redux newsletter.     It\u2019s officially spring, right? This week, we help to hasten winter\u2019s end with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31006],"tags":[3263,13259,33494,33493,33495],"class_list":["post-123426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-redux","tag-ben-lerner","tag-diane-di-prima","tag-false-spring","tag-john-hall-wheelock","tag-song-for-spring-equinox"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRedux: A Mild Olfactory Hallucination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week, in honor of the spring equinox, we\u2019re giving you free access to an interview, a poem, and a story about winter\u2019s end.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/03\/27\/redux-a-mild-olfactory-hallucination\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Redux: A Mild Olfactory Hallucination by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 27, 2018 \u2013 Every week, the editors of\u00a0The Paris Review\u00a0lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine\u2019s archive. 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