I am a photographer (or, I once was). In my discipline, thanks to Roland Barthes’s 1980 treatise Camera Lucida, we refer to the entry point into the photograph as “the punctum.” Though “entry point” isn’t quite right. The punctum, Barthes wrote, is more than a distinct detail; in fact, it can be entirely banal. It is rather “an accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me).” What could be a more
At around seven weeks of pregnancy, a mucus glob forms in the cervix and turns it from funnel into stopper. This blood-tinged plug keeps the baby in utero and anything lurking in your vagina out. When the evocatively named “bloody show” discharges, it’s time for the main event. I learned the term a few months before giving birth the first time, after which I shoved the gory mucus plug into the back of my consciousness-closet,
There’s something so American about Rae Armantrout’s poetry. It has the sudden breaks, the start-and-stop of Emily Dickinson; the direct colloquial speaking voice of William Carlos Williams; the abstract playfulness of John Ashbery. Her poems offer a constant sense of reinvention, and an invitation to the reader to make it all up along with the poet that I think of as America’s gift to poetry. This is a poet who puts her secrets on the
January 29, 2024 To the editor of LIBER, One trend I observed while researching my book The World According to Joan Didion was people’s tendency to project themselves onto Didion. The writer had a strong moral center but also an intellectual empathy that made her adaptable to different ways of thinking, and that led her to frequently question her own received values. When S.C. Cornell declares the writer a conservative in her disappointingly inaccurate—could she
Dear Men, This is mostly a note to straight, cis men but it also goes out to trans men, queer men, and all who participate in masculinity. If you see yourself in these words, this is a love note to you. Patriarchy (the system in which those who are perceived to belong to the social role of “man” hold the power and those perceived to belong to the social role of “woman” are excluded from
Through a bit of serendipity while researching women who’d spent time in maternity homes pre-Roe for a project with playwright Katie Cappiello, I was put in touch via email with Diane Gelon, an American attorney in London. Diane was immediately open to talking, and told me she’d always thought of herself as “one of the last to ‘go away,’ so to speak, although my going away was only to a home near downtown LA a
The author and Kurt with Flyana Boss members Folayan Omi Kunerede (left) and Bobbi LaNea Taylor. Photo courtesy of Aline Mello. In my last year at the university, I finally started taking advantage of its discount ticket program. When I saw seats for a musical, I thought, Perfect, and got tickets for my friend Kurt and me. The show was Jesus Christ Superstar, which neither of us had ever seen. I was expecting something quirky
Alexey Brodovitch. The Sylphs (Les Sylphides), 1935–37. Art Institute of Chicago. Purchased with funds provided by Karen and Jim Frank. Image courtesy of Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY. In the go-go 1980s, the last decade when print magazines in the US rode high, the last decade before the internet took over time and space, I was given an impromptu lesson in how to be a team player. Or not. The bottom line:
Kamala is not an item on a menu, where you get to say hold the fries and I’ll have the salad instead. Do you know how many times people have written on my posts, I like your writing but I don’t always agree with you. Like I need to know this. I don’t need to know this. You only say this kind of thing to women so they will understand they are being chopped into
Just So Bird shadows crossthe pear tree, slashingup or down,as it slowly leafs out—events!The children like to talkabout what isor isn’t likelyto happen.“Some people dye their hairbut not many,” one saysas she colorsthe dog’s bobgreen.The effortto be definiteis cute, I think:the arch in the middleof her top lipjust so About Time 1“It all happened so fast,”God said.2Everyone knows what “once” meansJust as everyone knowsthat “now”is a new set upeven if nothing much has changed. 3Some
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