{"id":70813,"date":"2014-05-06T11:00:42","date_gmt":"2014-05-06T15:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=70813"},"modified":"2014-05-06T13:12:48","modified_gmt":"2014-05-06T17:12:48","slug":"the-what-will-save-you-factor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/","title":{"rendered":"The What Will Save You Factor"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

At our Spring Revel last month, John Jeremiah Sullivan presented the Hadada Award to Frederick Seidel. Sullivan\u2019s remarks follow, along with three of Seidel\u2019s poems, which were read aloud that night: \u201cDowntown,\u201d read by Zadie Smith; \u201cFrederick Seidel,\u201d read by Martin Amis; and \u201cThe Night Sky,\u201d read by Uma Thurman.<\/em><\/p>\n

As a kind of offsite, ersatz staff member at The Paris Review<\/em>, I claim the pleasure both of thanking you all for your presence here, and of thanking everyone at the Review<\/em>\u2014Lorin, and the board, and my colleagues there\u2014for giving me the honor of announcing this award. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever used the word honor<\/em> in a less glib manner.<\/p>\n

When you are in your twenties and living in the city, or any city, or anywhere, and trying to write, there are poets whose work will come to mean something to you beyond pleasure, beyond even whatever we have in mind when we use the word inspiration<\/em>, and into the arena of survival, into what the poet whose work we are celebrating tonight describes as the \u201cwhat will save you factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I was in my twenties and living in New York, the poet who came to mean that for me and a lot of the other younger writers and editors I knew was one named Frederick Seidel, a poet who had come, like another we\u2019d heard about, from St. Louis via Harvard, and from there, via everywhere. <\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t ours, wasn\u2019t a peer, I mean, not a Rimbaud or a Plath suddenly stalking among us, using the cover of brashness to say things we\u2019d never allowed ourselves to say, but rather a man then entering his late sixties, whose work had been known and respected and at times viciously attacked for decades, but which seemed to be entering a phase of new intensity. Or possibly we were just hearing about it for the first time.<\/p>\n

At moments he could seem like a coterie poet\u2014as if the people you knew who\u2019d read him, were the only people who\u2019d read him\u2014but at others you\u2019d get the feeling that no matter where you went, no matter where in the world, there\u2019d be someone who\u2019d give you the look, when you brought up his name, the look that said they\u2019d been there, had undergone the exquisite and occasionally searing experience of reading Seidel\u2019s poems.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy for me to say exactly what struck me about those poems the first time I encountered them. I was someone who had attended a lot<\/em> of poetry readings in the 1990s, on college campuses and in bookstores\u2014I worked as a lackey at a writer\u2019s conference for a few years, where serious poets would blow through, and I even convinced myself for a while that I could write poems\u2014which is only to say that the sound of American poetry, the ground note of it, was very clear in my head when I moved to the city. And it was impossible to deny\u2014maybe you could deny it to others, but not to yourself\u2014that there was something missing, something that might just be essential to the whole business. The sealed-in nature of the poetry world had taken a certain kind of risk out of things, a certain kind of danger, and as a result, a certain kind of consequence. Not to say that there weren\u2019t excellent poets working, but when they went up to the podiums and cracked open copies of their own books, there was often an uncomfortable sense that it was all taking place between giant, invisible quotation marks, and the very theme of too many poems seemed to be: the hope of having something to say. Of sounding like what great poetry might sound like, would<\/em> sound like.<\/p>\n

But these poems, these Seidel poems, were nothing like that. Indeed they seemed to come from outside that entire sphere of concern. They were not worried about having something to say. They knew they had plenty to say, that there was always plenty to say\u2014about love, sex, politics, murder, beauty, money, death, and motorcycles\u2014it was whether a person could say it. To do that took both work\u2014the work of perfecting a style\u2014and courage, the courage of writing what seemed most true. Not what is<\/em> true, mind you\u2014we don\u2019t get to know \u201cwhat is true\u201d\u2014but what seems most true, which is a harder task, because it can be done, and therefore failed at, and because it hurts. This poet was asserting what felt like an ancient right, a right to sing out of the deepest self\u2014to write painfully ugly things, and to write painfully beautiful things, but not to write a single thing that he didn\u2019t mean, that didn\u2019t scare him. Lou Reed sang, about Andy Warhol, \u201cI scared myself with music, you scared yourself with paint.\u201d Seidel scared himself with poetry, and us too. How had he done it? How had he dared<\/em>? That\u2019s a question for his biographers. All I know is that once you\u2019d heard his voice, there was no turning around from it, no tricking yourself into thinking you hadn\u2019t heard it. The voice was sardonic, and it could be satanic, and it was sacred.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the writers you love in your twenties turn out to be writers you can love only in your twenties, and I do remember wondering, back then, what we would think of Seidel\u2019s work in ten years, or in twenty years. He settled the question by somehow, implausibly, getting better. He had warned us that he would, I suppose. Hadn\u2019t this writer told us, years ago, that he takes for his motto, \u201cI rot before I ripen\u201d? He ripened. In 2006, he wrote Ooga-Booga<\/em>. He wrote \u201cThe Death of the Shah,\u201d the first undeniable, capital-G Great American Poem of the twenty-first century. And he has not slowed down. Incredibly, when we started talking about which poems to include in tonight\u2019s short reading, we found ourselves leaning toward new material. But wound up choosing something a little older, something relatively recent, and something brand new, from just a few months ago.<\/p>\n

\n

1. DOWNTOWN<\/small><\/p>\n

July 4th fireworks exhale over the Hudson sadly.
\nIt is beautiful that they have to disappear.
\nIt\u2019s like the time you said I love you madly.
\nThat was an hour ago. It\u2019s been a fervent year.
\nI don\u2019t really love fireworks, not really, the flavorful floating shroud
\nIn the nighttime sky above the river and the crowd.
\nThis time, because of the distance upriver perhaps, they\u2019re not loud,
\nEven the colors aren\u2019t, the patterns getting pregnant and popping.
\nThey get bigger and louder when they start stopping.
\nThey try to rally
\nAt the finale.
\nIt\u2019s the four-hundredth anniversary of Henry Hudson\u2019s discovery\u2014
\nWhich is why the fireworks happen on this side of the island this year.
\nShad are back, and we celebrate the Hudson\u2019s Clean Water Act recovery.
\nWhat a joy to eat the unborn. We\u2019re monsters, I fear. What monsters we\u2019re.
\nWe\u2019ll binge on shad roe next spring in the delicious few minutes it\u2019s here.<\/p>\n

2. FREDERICK SEIDEL<\/small><\/p>\n

I live a life of laziness and luxury,
\nLike a hare without a bone who sleeps in a p\u00e2t\u00e9.
\nI met a fellow who was so depressed
\nHe never got dressed and never got undressed.<\/p>\n

He lived a life of laziness and luxury.
\nHe hid his life away in poetry,
\nLike a hare still running from a gun in a p\u00e2t\u00e9.
\nHe didn\u2019t talk much about himself because there wasn\u2019t much to say.<\/p>\n

He found it was impossible to look or not to.
\nIt will literally blind him but he\u2019s got to.
\nHer caterpillar with a groove
\nWaits for love<\/p>\n

Between her legs. The crease
\nIs dripping grease.
\nHe\u2019s blind\u2014now he really is.
\nCan\u2019t you help him, gods!<\/p>\n

Her light is white
\nMoonlight.
\nOr the Parthenon under the sun
\nIs the other one.<\/p>\n

There are other examples but
\nA perfect example in his poetry is the what
\nWill save you factor.
\nThe Jaws of Life cut the life crushed in the compactor<\/p>\n

Out.
\nMy life is a snout
\nSnuffling toward the truffle, life. Anyway!
\nIt is a life of luxury. Don\u2019t put me out of my misery.<\/p>\n

I am seeking more Jerusalem, not less.
\nAnd in the outtakes, after they pull my fingernails out, I confess:
\nI do love
\nThe sky above.<\/p>\n

3. THE NIGHT SKY<\/small><\/p>\n

At night, when she is fast asleep,
\nThe comet, which appears not to move at all,
\nCrosses the sky above her bed,
\nBut stays there looking down.<\/p>\n

She rises from her sleeping body.
\nHer body stays behind asleep.
\nShe climbs the lowered ladder.
\nShe enters through the opened hatch.<\/p>\n

Inside is everyone.
\nEveryone is there.
\nSomeone smiling is made of silk.
\nSomeone else was made with milk.<\/p>\n

Her mother still alive.
\nHer brothers and sisters and father
\nAnd aunts and uncles and grandparents
\nAnd husband never died.<\/p>\n

Hold the glass with both hands,
\nMy darling, that way you won\u2019t spill.
\nOn her little dress, her cloth yellow star
\nComet travels through space.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At our Spring Revel last month, John Jeremiah Sullivan presented the Hadada Award to Frederick Seidel. Sullivan\u2019s remarks follow, along with three of Seidel\u2019s poems, which were read aloud that night: \u201cDowntown,\u201d read by Zadie Smith; \u201cFrederick Seidel,\u201d read by Martin Amis; and \u201cThe Night Sky,\u201d read by Uma Thurman. As a kind of offsite, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[794],"tags":[712,1577,1268,124,165,2047,13048,1525,13799,1079],"class_list":["post-70813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-revel","tag-frederick-seidel","tag-john-jeremiah-sullivan","tag-martin-amis","tag-new-york","tag-poetry","tag-poets","tag-revel-2014","tag-spring-revel","tag-uma-thurman","tag-zadie-smith"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Jeremiah Sullivan\u2019s Remarks on Frederick Seidel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From the 2014 Paris Review Spring Revel, the full text from John Jeremiah Sullivan's full speech on Hadada Prize winner Frederick Seidel.\" \/>\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\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The What Will Save You Factor by John Jeremiah Sullivan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"May 6, 2014 \u2013 At our Spring Revel last month, John Jeremiah Sullivan presented the Hadada Award to Frederick Seidel. Sullivan\u2019s remarks follow, along with three of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-05-06T15:00:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-06T17:12:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/John-Jeremiah-Sullivan.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Jeremiah Sullivan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Jeremiah Sullivan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"John Jeremiah Sullivan\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e11d500c825ea1f0356b8eebc2d8661b\"},\"headline\":\"The What Will Save You Factor\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-05-06T15:00:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-05-06T17:12:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/\"},\"wordCount\":1566,\"commentCount\":3,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/John-Jeremiah-Sullivan.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Frederick Seidel\",\"John Jeremiah Sullivan\",\"Martin Amis\",\"New York\",\"poetry\",\"poets\",\"Revel 2014\",\"Spring Revel\",\"Uma Thurman\",\"Zadie Smith\"],\"articleSection\":[\"The Revel\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/\",\"name\":\"John Jeremiah Sullivan\u2019s Remarks on Frederick Seidel\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/John-Jeremiah-Sullivan.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-05-06T15:00:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-05-06T17:12:48+00:00\",\"description\":\"From the 2014 Paris Review Spring Revel, the full text from John Jeremiah Sullivan's full speech on Hadada Prize winner Frederick Seidel.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/John-Jeremiah-Sullivan.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/John-Jeremiah-Sullivan.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The What Will Save You Factor\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e11d500c825ea1f0356b8eebc2d8661b\",\"name\":\"John Jeremiah Sullivan\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e17097c40a9da014d73cbb0757e18e0ece7a5f4038df82a1c657e8958f2ebf43?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e17097c40a9da014d73cbb0757e18e0ece7a5f4038df82a1c657e8958f2ebf43?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Jeremiah Sullivan\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jsullivan\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"John Jeremiah Sullivan\u2019s Remarks on Frederick Seidel","description":"From the 2014 Paris Review Spring Revel, the full text from John Jeremiah Sullivan's full speech on Hadada Prize winner Frederick Seidel.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The What Will Save You Factor by John Jeremiah Sullivan","og_description":"May 6, 2014 \u2013 At our Spring Revel last month, John Jeremiah Sullivan presented the Hadada Award to Frederick Seidel. Sullivan\u2019s remarks follow, along with three of","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2014-05-06T15:00:42+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-05-06T17:12:48+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":400,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/John-Jeremiah-Sullivan.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"John Jeremiah Sullivan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"John Jeremiah Sullivan","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/"},"author":{"name":"John Jeremiah Sullivan","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e11d500c825ea1f0356b8eebc2d8661b"},"headline":"The What Will Save You Factor","datePublished":"2014-05-06T15:00:42+00:00","dateModified":"2014-05-06T17:12:48+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/"},"wordCount":1566,"commentCount":3,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/John-Jeremiah-Sullivan.jpg","keywords":["Frederick Seidel","John Jeremiah Sullivan","Martin Amis","New York","poetry","poets","Revel 2014","Spring Revel","Uma Thurman","Zadie Smith"],"articleSection":["The Revel"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/","name":"John Jeremiah Sullivan\u2019s Remarks on Frederick Seidel","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/John-Jeremiah-Sullivan.jpg","datePublished":"2014-05-06T15:00:42+00:00","dateModified":"2014-05-06T17:12:48+00:00","description":"From the 2014 Paris Review Spring Revel, the full text from John Jeremiah Sullivan's full speech on Hadada Prize winner Frederick Seidel.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/John-Jeremiah-Sullivan.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/John-Jeremiah-Sullivan.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/06\/the-what-will-save-you-factor\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The What Will Save You Factor"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e11d500c825ea1f0356b8eebc2d8661b","name":"John Jeremiah Sullivan","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e17097c40a9da014d73cbb0757e18e0ece7a5f4038df82a1c657e8958f2ebf43?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e17097c40a9da014d73cbb0757e18e0ece7a5f4038df82a1c657e8958f2ebf43?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"John Jeremiah Sullivan"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jsullivan\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70813"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70831,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70813\/revisions\/70831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}