{"id":152747,"date":"2021-05-28T09:01:41","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T13:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=152747"},"modified":"2021-05-28T11:35:23","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T15:35:23","slug":"what-our-contributors-are-reading-this-spring-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/05\/28\/what-our-contributors-are-reading-this-spring-3\/","title":{"rendered":"What Our Contributors Are Reading This Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

William Hilton, John Keats<\/em> (detail), ca. 1822, oil on canvas, 30 x 25″. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

Poets can be divided into two groups: those who dutifully tortured \u201cWhen I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be\u201d in secondary school (POET = WORRIED ABOUT DYING<\/small> scrawled unhelpfully in the margins) without ever giving its author a second thought, and those for whom Keats serves as spiritual teacher. To his followers, Keats is a poet\u2019s poet, is the<\/em> poet\u2019s poet, a writer whose brief span compressed all the love, pain, and existential uncertainty of a lifetime, which the finest of his fifty-four published poems animate. He believed pain and trouble were their own education, \u201cschool[ing] an intelligence to make it a soul.\u201d His was a rare gift, and yet his best poems weren\u2019t earned without effort; early examples are uneven and clumsy, and for that perseverance and learning by shrewd emulation, we admire him all the more. His death at twenty-five trapped that quiddity in amber.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I have fears that I may cease to be\u201d\u2014<\/em>and then he did; he died young, corroborating that fear, poised and brave in his final moments, and leaving the rest of us neurotic types (what sort of reasonable person isn\u2019t <\/em>hung up on the terror of premature death?) wringing our hands, staring into the middle distance. In this way, Keats confirms every poet\u2019s greatest anxiety\u2014that our fears, in truth, are sometimes justified, and that our clever poems may know more than we do.<\/p>\n

These, of course, are my own ramblings on a figure whose life I found myself drawn to only once I had outlived him. Each year now brings me paradoxically closer and farther from Keats.<\/p>\n

Andrew Motion\u2019s biography of the poet is fantastically scholarly and accessible, a term that\u2019s been overused so as to mean almost nothing. What I mean is this: on a Sunday in ninety-degree heat, you can lift the tome in your withered state, flip to a chapter at random, and find Motion guiding you with energy, intelligence, and a true sense of partaking in the marvelousness of Keats with<\/em> you. Motion is wonderfully clear and direct while still making his mark on the prose at every turn, as on our understanding of the dimensions and shape of Keats\u2019s life through his well-considered interest in the poet\u2019s social and political circumstances. His description of Keats\u2019s dying moments is quietly gripping, worthy of a season finale of one of the medical dramas that multiply like invasive species across American television, and yet the book goes on another twenty pages, making such partings bearable. Life <\/em>goes on, even when major stars extinguish. In Keats\u2019s case, that extinguishing served as a spark, with each subsequent generation of poets holding vigil.\u00a0\u2014Maya C. Popa<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

When I came across theMIND\u2019s album Don\u2019t Let It Go to Your Head<\/em><\/a>, I had just met a deadline. I mean, I met the deadline at 3 A.M.<\/small>, but it still counts. Instead of going to sleep, I started listening. When I finished the album for the first time, I sat up in bed, took out my headphones, and thought, Damn\u2014now I gotta rewrite everything. There was something about the way he observed doubt\u2014saying everything I meant to say, but better\u2014that not only reminded me songs are probably the one thing I\u2019ve ever truly loved in my life, but these songs in particular really allowed me to consider the advice on the intro:<\/p>\n

Stop.
\nYou\u2019re overthinking it.
\nContinue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which is probably why I ended up staying awake until nighttime came back around again.<\/p>\n

A lot of what I was hearing mirrored what I was feeling about myself throughout the process of nit-picking at words, \u201c[hoping] this honesty saves us.\u201d You really gotta read these lyrics, man. \u201cAtlas Complex\u201d? Broke me. \u201cSea\u201d? Blessed me. \u201cCraig\u201d? Just @ me. Bars on bars on bars on soul on heart on God. It\u2019s like although the content is heavy in an interior way, you can still clean ya house to it. No skips. Spotless sweep. To say I\u2019m obsessed is an understatement. \u2014Kendra Allen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

John Keeley, Among the Coal Pits, Staffordshire<\/em>, n.d., watercolor, 9 1\/2 x 9″. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maybe because lockdown is a little like being buried alive in your own life, I\u2019ve been thinking about mines and mining and miners lately. Here are three sources on what it\u2019s like to be a miner, the art and craft and deadliness and language and silence of it, and who cares.<\/p>\n

Brassed Off<\/em><\/a>, a movie about the troubles faced by a\u00a0colliery brass band upon the closure of their\u00a0pit<\/a>, directed by Mark Herman, 1996.<\/p>\n

\u201cNottingham and the Mining Countryside,\u201d an essay by D.\u2009H. Lawrence about his father, who was a miner, and about his own childhood in a mining town of Derbyshire, available in Geoff Dyer\u2019s The Bad Side of Books: Selected Essays of D.H. Lawrence<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Coal Mountain Elementary<\/em><\/a>, book-length poem by Mark Nowak on miners in West Virginia and in China, and how to teach children about them in an elementary school. \u2014Anne Carson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

When I\u2019m feeling down, uninspired and going dead-eyed to the sound of my laptop\u2019s whirring fan, I\u2019ll seek out a live recording of a band that saw me through my nineties adolescence. These videos tend to be of shows from the band\u2019s early years, before they were famous, or at least super famous, the VHS recordings of talents about to break out, transferred and readily available on YouTube. The one I go to most is Nirvana\u2019s November 20, 1989, show<\/a> at the venue KAPU in Linz, Austria.<\/p>\n

By then the band had been around for a couple of years and were touring in support of their just-released album Bleach<\/em>. In the video, which for some reason has a timestamp of November 21, it\u2019s as if everybody is crammed into a living room, and the band looks like they\u2019re slouching under KAPU\u2019s low ceiling. Weirdly synchronous with our days, bassist Krist Novoselic is sporting a handkerchief over his face. Chad Channing, the band\u2019s first drummer, sits sleeveless at his kit. Next to him, the band\u2019s \u201cFudge Packin\u201d T-shirt without the \u201cFudge Packin\u201d text (or something like the \u201cFudge Packin\u201d T-shirt anyway) is on display by a TAD<\/small> shirt. I think Kurt Cobain is playing the Hagstrom II F-200, which, if you want, you can watch him smash seven days later at the end of a show in Italy.<\/p>\n

The sounds of these songs are obviously way different from the album versions, or even the live versions played during shows post\u2013In Utero<\/em>. They\u2019re way more intimate and way more representative of who these musicians were as regular aspiring artists, not just budding rock stars. Instead of the dramatic, sudden openings of later shows, there are about two minutes of them milling about and tuning their instruments, finding their sound, and then, with nothing more than a couple nods at Channing, Cobain starts \u201cSchool.\u201d During \u201cScoff,\u201d Cobain loses his pick and Novoselic just screams into the mic and yells the next verses. Then more tuning, and Novoselic, his cornball self, saying, \u201cIt\u2019s great to be here in Australia, but I haven\u2019t seen any kangaroos yet.\u201d Right before the video cuts out, Cobain turns off his amp and says, \u201cWill you buy our T-shirts?\u201d<\/p>\n

My chest tightens every time I watch this video. I think it comes from getting to pretend I\u2019m taking part in history, while knowing the greatness and the sadness that lie ahead for the musicians. They have no idea how amazing things are about to get for them. But it will be short-lived, and so I\u2019m left with a kind of inspiration that only comes from complete gratitude. \u2014Peyton Burgess<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Octavia E. Butler signing a copy of Fledgling<\/em>, 2005. Photo: Nikolas Coukouma. CC BY-SA 2.5 (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.5), via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m reading Octavia Butler\u2019s Parable of the Sower<\/em><\/a> for the first time. Is it odd to say, already, that I recommend it? Unlike many of Butler\u2019s other works, this book contains few science fiction elements. The book\u2019s action begins in 2025, in an almost-lawless United States, where climate change and economic crises have degraded government systems to husks. Lauren, our protagonist, lives in a gated community in California, on the wafer-thin line between relative safety and the poverty, crime, and chaos of the surrounding town. Butler imagines a desolate future shaped entirely by America\u2019s own past.<\/p>\n

There is a calmness to Lauren, though, as she journals her way through the destruction of everything she loves. In addition to being deeply empathetic, she is also intelligent, focused, and thoughtful. In this stillness, I see Butler\u2019s clarity as a writer, her ability to hold devastating realities about America at arm\u2019s length, to unflinchingly describe their contours on the page.<\/p>\n

Early in the book, Lauren writes: \u201cI\u2019m trying to speak\u2014to write\u2014the truth. I\u2019m trying to be clear. I\u2019m not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The norm is to recommend books only after one has finished them. But lately, I\u2019ve been thinking less about the satisfaction of checking off a book as \u201cfinished.\u201d There is always pressure to keep charging forward, to move on to the next thing. I\u2019m thinking a lot more about the immersive experience of reading slowly, of being present in the narrative moment.<\/p>\n

Amid the pressure to resume pre-COVID<\/small> life without looking back, I find solace in this slowness, in losing myself in Butler\u2019s study of America, which is as much about our past as it is a warning about our future. \u2014Yohanca Delgado<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Still from Ali Abbasi\u2019s Border<\/em>, 2018. Courtesy of NEON<\/small>.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The limits of horror are getting tested lately. As I watched the Swedish film Border<\/em><\/a>, directed by Ali Abbasi, I was reminded of horror\u2019s fundamental philosophical question: What is human? This question comes to life the moment something inhuman or monstrous invades normalcy. In Border<\/em>, the monster has already invaded in the form of Tina, an agent whose job is to detect smugglers for the Swedish Customs Service.<\/p>\n

The territorial borders of Sweden are not the only boundary Tina is tasked with protecting in this old-growth horror film. Tina, whose every facial feature is subsumed to the operations of her nose, does not fully present as human. Her ability to detect contraband by smelling emotions of guilt on the human carrier makes her invaluable to the customs service. Tina is without a doubt at the border of the animal and human realms. She is visited nightly by the woodland creatures around her house, and a moose seems to find her company of endless good use.<\/p>\n

Abbasi sets his story in the realm of fairy tale, where trolls and changelings nibble on maggots at the edges of forests and bassinets. When a man named Vore passes through customs, Tina\u2019s affinity to him overrides her duty as boundary keeper. She will learn from Vore that she is not human. Abbasi employs allegory to test the boundaries of gender by reversing the secondary sex characteristics of the main characters. Border<\/em> also explores the frail status of the foreigner in Sweden. This seems fair game in a country where children from refugee families faced with deportation have been known to fall asleep for years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tina also learns from Vore of the crimes committed against her kind. However, Vore is tainted by his unbound vengeance against humans, and Tina will have to choose between the ruthless morals of her own kind and those of her abductors, humans.<\/p>\n

Border<\/em> reminds us that we, humans, have an innate moral sense that directs us toward ethical conduct. Yet, at the very moment that Border<\/em> delivers an affirming yes through the ethical actions of its protagonist, I was struck by how outdated that question\u2014What is human?\u2014has become. Though we, humans, may know the difference between right and wrong, this does little to dismantle the model of planetary depletion and extraction we benefit from. We are stewards of our destruction.<\/p>\n

Tina\u2019s affinity with the animal world seems the most evolved stance in Abbasi\u2019s Border<\/em>. Perhaps the question of the horror film is no longer what is human and what is inhuman, but whether there is enough animal left in the human to save us. \u2014Mary Kuryla<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

In \u201cSventa<\/a>,\u201d the essay I translated for the current issue, Maxim Osipov returns to Lithuania after a long absence and finds the landscape he knew in his youth irrevocably altered. To try to make sense of the changes and to absorb their impact, he relies, as Russian speakers often do, on poems. These are the lines that come to his aid: \u201cA house stood here. [\u2026] \/ And now a bird goes flying through \/ the empty space that was a window.\u201d They belong to Ivan Elagin (1918\u20131987), one of many Russian authors whose lives were upended by World War II. Together with his wife and fellow poet, Olga Anstei, he stayed in Kyiv under Nazi occupation; the couple left with the retreating Germans in 1943, were placed in a DP camp, lost an infant to pneumonia, and, in 1950, immigrated to the United States, where they soon divorced. Elagin became a major poet, whose poignant, self-interrogating verse reflects what Edward Said called the \u201cdouble perspective\u201d of the exile, who \u201csees things both in terms of what has been left behind and what is actual here and now.\u201d I\u2019ve translated a number of Elagin\u2019s lyrics (here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>), but his unflinching \u201cdouble perspective\u201d is most vividly captured in the long poem \u201cFadeout,\u201d which Maria Bloshteyn has translated and included in her extraordinary anthology Russia Is Burning: Poems of the Great Patriotic War<\/em><\/a>. In the poem, Elagin, who served as an ambulance driver under occupation, suffers the fresh trauma of a car wreck outside Chicago, which dredges up the old trauma of transporting a dying soldier to hospital under heavy bombardment: \u201cWe drove out of Chicago. \/ The skyscrapers behind us \/ were covered up by smoke. \/ A moment is like gravity, \/ its pull is indestructible, \/ it stays within us locked.\u201d Russia Is Burning<\/em> gathers the work of nearly a hundred poets and offers a brave, unprecedentedly nuanced portrait of the Russian wartime experience and its aftermath. I\u2019ve been reading it throughout this past year, and each page reminds me that no tragedy leaves its survivors unmarked. \u2014Boris Dralyuk<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anne Carson, Yohanca Delgado, and other contributors to the Spring 2021 issue weigh in on what they\u2019ve been enjoying recently.<\/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":[438],"tags":[67827],"class_list":["post-152747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-weeks-reading","tag-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Our Contributors Are Reading This Spring by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Anne Carson, Yohanca Delgado, and more contributors to the Spring 2021 issue weigh in on what they\u2019ve been enjoying recently.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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