Each month, Blurbed features a curated list of things to read, events to attend and news from the Journal.
Announcing Columbia Journal Issue 57
Order your copy of Columbia Journal's Spring 2019 edition, Issue 57, featuring work by Jenny Holzer, Patti Smith, Eileen Myles, Duy Doan, and Donika Kelly.
Review: Now, Now, Louison by Jean Fremon, translated by Cole Swensen
Now, Now, Louison is a biography--a “written portrait”--of Louise Bourgeois, the sculptor and painter made infamous for her towering sculptures of spiders.
Review: Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev
Sophia Shalmiyev takes the reader through her experiences growing up with an alcoholic mother and her search for replacement mother figures.
Review: Death Is Hard Work by Khaled Khalifa
Death is Hard Work offers the reader an intimate and devastating look into a Syria fractured by war, hunger, and distrust.
Review: The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
Laila Lalami channels the realities of our layered, and undoubtedly flawed, society with compassion, empathy, and an unflinching eye.
Good Emanations
Whatever they are, I’m sending them your way.
Freydl by Miriam Karpilove Translated from Yiddish
She had big blue eyes, a Grecian nose, a tiny mouth with blood red lips, and when she laughed two dimples appeared on her cheeks.
halfway
i want/ to reply/ about it all/ when/ you message me/ at 3am/ about/ the grasshopper/ on/ your/ toothbrush.
Review: Time Is the Thing a Body Moves Through By T Fleischmann
Fleischmann’s essay, Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through, is a balancing act of various genres.
Escape Velocity
Instead of relaxing on a wide road of opportunities, I felt cramped and anxious. What if I got out but felt exactly the same?
To Care and Take Care: An Interview With Ross Gay
I would try to point to some ordinary kindness or act of care or tenderness or beauty, which we are always in the midst of.