Category: Essays and Reviews

If Walt Whitman’s language provided the basis of a book called Better Nature that reworked his journals and poetry to show their colonizing implications; if that book were to be reviewed in Debutantes

For Debutantes (now Debbie), I reviewed Fenn Stewart's poetry collection Better Nature (BookThug, 2017). Read my review here: https://debutantes.squarespace.com/lessai/2018/1/3/if-walt-whitmans-language-provided-the-basis-of-a-book-called-better-nature-that-reworked-his-journals-and-poetry-to-show-their-colonizing-implications-if-that-book-were-to-be-reviewed-in-debutantes

What a Punderful Word: On Joanna Walsh’s “Worlds from the Word’s End”

For LARB, I reviewed Joanna Walsh's short story collection Worlds from the Word's End (And Other Stories, 2017). This review follows up on some literary theoretical research I had done on puns, as they are taken up by poets like Harryette Mullen. This review particularly attends to the way that Walsh uses the pun as a form of thought to create inventive and surprising connections that would not be knowable otherwise. Read it here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/what-a-punderful-word-on-joanna-walshs-worlds-from-the-words-end/

Foreign Companion: Jean Giono’s “Melville: A Novel”

For LARB, I reviewed Jean Giono's Melville: A Novel (NYRB Classics, 2017). This review thinks through the fictionalization of Herman Melville's biography and its resonances with the French context of Giono's own writing. Read more here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/foreign-companion-jean-gionos-melville-a-novel/