Before There Was Twilight, There Was Dusk
Add James Salter's Dusk to the list of genius reissues coming out this year. Modern Library has put out a handsome new edition of the story collection, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award when it first...
View ArticleThe Fun Part
“You can’t help it,” she said. “It’s a genetic thing. You weren’t allowed to own land in the Middle Ages.” We were excited to see Sam Lipsyte on The Henry Review—and even more so when we realized that...
View ArticleFlame
On April 8, at our Spring Revel, we’ll honor Frederick Seidel with the Hadada Award. In the weeks leading up the Revel, we’re looking back at the work Seidel has published in The Paris Review...
View ArticleThe Lion Cage
Leonid Pasternak, Rilke in Moscow (detail), 1928. Rainer Maria Rilke was born on this day in 1875. The below is excerpted from “The Lion Cage,” one in a series of Rilke translations by Stephen Mitchell...
View ArticleSay “I Love You” with Vintage Issues of The Paris Review
It’s hard to put love into words. That’s why so many of us express our emotions with small, high-pitched noises, like woodland creatures. But Valentine’s Day is only a month off, and we must rise to...
View ArticleShow Your Affection with Vintage Issues of The Paris Review
Photo: Stephen Andrew Hiltner It’s not easy to describe matters of the heart. Even Shakespeare sometimes got it wrong: “Love is a smoke,” he wrote in Romeo and Juliet, as if we’re all human cigarettes,...
View ArticleThe Verb to Be
André Breton in 1924. André Breton’s poem “The Verb to Be” originally appeared in our Spring 1985 issue. I know the general outline of despair. Despair has no wings, it doesn’t necessarily sit at a...
View ArticleSoap
Photo: Kathea Pinto From “Soap,” by Francis Ponge, in our Summer 1968 issue. Ponge, a French poet and essayist born on this day in 1899, believed that “a mind in search of ideas should first stock up...
View ArticleClarence in the Seafood Palace
Anonymous, Still Life with Lobster, ca. 1890. A poem by Elizabeth Handel from our Fall 1976 issue. Handel went on to become a doctor; Google suggests that the composer Thomas Janson adapted this poem...
View ArticleMannerism
René Ricard in a photo by Allen Ginsberg.“Mannerism,” a poem by René Ricard from our Summer 1970 issue. Ricard was born on this day in 1946; he died last year. An obituary in the New York Times calls...
View ArticleLast Days of Prospero
Joseph Severn, A Scene from the Tempest, Prospero and Ariel (detail) “Last Days of Prospero,” a poem by Donald Justice from our Winter - Spring 1964 issue. Justice, born on August 12, 1925, is...
View ArticleSnort to Win
“Coke,” a poem by Scott Cohen from our Summer 1971 issue. Cohen’s collection Actual Size was published the same year.The difference in the speed of the thought process of a man who has just snorted...
View ArticleHow to Name Your Baby
Illustration: Elmar ErschWhenever anyone frowns upon the Daily for publishing work they find obscene, frivolous, or otherwise undeserving of the prestigious Paris Review name, I want to direct their...
View ArticlePortable People
From the cover of Portable People, illustrated by Joe Servello.Paul West, whom the New York Times once praised for his “unsettling nonuniformity,” died this week at eighty-five. An absurdist with a...
View ArticleDonna Reed in the Old Scary House
Donna Reed, being spooky.Tom Disch’s poem “Donna Reed in the Old Scary House” appeared in our Fall 1995 issue. A prolific poet, novelist, science-fiction writer, and author of children’s...
View ArticleFor a Cook
Anonymous painting, nineteenth centuryCraig Arnold’s “For a Cook” appeared in our Winter 1997 issue. Arnold, born on this day in 1967, published only two collections of poems before his presumed death...
View ArticleFavorites from the Archive
Fact: nearly every one of the 214 back issues in our archive, going all the back to 1953, is available for purchase—and they make great last-minute gifts. We’re recommending few of our favorites: the...
View ArticleGive Your Valentine Our Special Box Set
Valentine’s Day is less than a month away. Started that love letter yet? You could be forgiven for putting it off: even Roland Barthes felt that “to try to write love is to confront the muck of...
View ArticleThe Distance Up Close
Lovis Corinth, Walchensee, Schneelandschaft, 1919.Molly Peacock’s poem “The Distance Up Close” appeared in our Summer 1983 issue. Her most recent book is The Paper Garden. The Distance Up CloseAll my...
View ArticleHomesickness
“Homesickness,” ca. 1948. This page is from the Vassar College Library, Department of Archives and Special Collections, where Bishop’s papers are stored. Click to enlarge.Elizabeth Bishop’s poem...
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