Paul Christensen
The Cuban Enigma
Here are three books that plot a trajectory in the tormented life of Cuba, the island at our back door and one of the great enigmas of the American political imagination. This slender strip of land, not quite the size … Read More
Survival Among the Ruins
How is it that Jim Crace, an English novelist, and our own Cormac McCarthy sat down at about the same time to write novels about a blistered, disintegrating, post-nuclear-war America? Crace’s The Pesthouse, published in May, and McCarthy’s The Road, … Read More
Still Declining and Falling
Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire Morris Berman is a messenger bringing bad news about the coming end of the American empire, which he estimates will occur around the year 2040. We are heading over the cliff because … Read More
Flashlights in the Gloom
Makes You Stop and Think: Sonnets Not for Specialists: New and Selected Poems An Alchemist with One Eyeon Fire Here are three writers from another generation, overlapping one another by a few years, messengers from a world shaped by two … Read More
Arts in Aggieland
I wanted to put on a festival like those seen all across Europe each summer, when entire villages are turned into a stage, with stilt-walkers and magicians working the crowds, scholars and writers holed up in the mayor’s reception room, … Read More
Some Voices on the Left
Some Voices on the Left BY PAUL CHRISTENSEN A Book of Witness: Spells & Gris-Gris By Jerome Rothenberg New Directions 188 pages, $15.95 Facing Invasion By Clayton Eshleman Unarmedjournal.com Pamphlet. free Everwhat By Clayton Eshleman Zasterle 58 pages, $10 Juniper … Read More
Book Review
Lone Rangers
Selected Poems: 1950—2000 Companion Spider: Essays Some poets find their experience in the backyard or in their fantasies; a few go roaming abroad to discover what lies beyond their towns and the comforts of their own culture. Two such poets … Read More