Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 52
December 26, 2020
Reader’s Corner: Poetry in Bed
The deadly debonair Welsh actor Richard Burton may have made his living as an actor but his true love was reading, particularly poetry. The range of authors who “corrupted” him ranged from Shakespeare to Proust and Hemingway: But mostly I was corrupted by Dylan Thomas. Most people see me as a rake, womanizer, boozer and …
December 25, 2020
Holiday Break: ‘Snow Days’
Go ahead and take a snow day. Or a few. You deserve it.
December 23, 2020
Screening Room: ‘Wonder Woman 1984’
The sequel Wonder Woman 1984 opens in some theaters and on HBO on Christmas. My review is at Slant: Calling Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman 1984 a perfectly acceptable comic-book adventure might sound more negative than intended. But in a time when the genre is more typically given to the kind of world-building that seems primarily committed to …
December 20, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Art is Not Therapy
Art Spiegelman created some of the greatest literature of the 20th century by translating his and his family’s history into indelible art. At the same time, he thinks it is more complicated than simply putting one’s thoughts, worries, and pain on the page. As he told Vulture: Therapy is vomiting things up. Art is about …
December 17, 2020
Reader’s Corner: Year’s Best Books
Since you still have time (a little, at least) to head down to your local bookstore and get some holiday presents, PopMatters just published their handy guide to some of their favorite books of the year. I threw in some ideas of my own, selected in a highly unscientific manner. Here is the best nonfiction. …
December 16, 2020
Reader’s Corner: Year’s Best Graphic Novels
Publishers Weekly just published its annual poll of the year’s best graphic novels, at least as determined by its crew of critics (including myself). A strong favorite for the top selection, a choice that I strongly stand behind, is Derf Backderf’s stunning work of impassioned history, Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio. You can read …
Continue reading Reader’s Corner: Year’s Best Graphic Novels
December 15, 2020
Screening Room: ‘The Father’
Florian Zeller’s adaptation of his play The Father is one of the year’s best-acted movies, thanks to Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins. The Father is opening soon wherever movies play these days. Go find it. My review is at Slant: A quietly terrifying drama about dementia, The Father starts off inauspiciously as a simple chamber piece …
December 14, 2020
Reader’s Corner: Literary Datebook
If you are looking for a holiday gift for a literary-minded friend, how about a fancy desk calendar? Check out the 2021 Barnes & Noble Desk Diary. Besides being a handsome hardcover edition with David Levine art throughout, it also has a wealth of short pieces about authors written by yours truly tied to the …
December 13, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Follow the Scent
Here is Louise Glück telling Poets & Writers about her process: When Im trying to put a poem or a book together, I feel like a tracker in the forest following a scent, tracking only step to step. Its not as though I have plot elements grafted onto the walls elaborating themselves. Of course, I
December 11, 2020
Reader’s Corner: Hell of a Year
From a letter the poet John Berryman wrote to Robert Lowell in 1963: Hell of a year, isnt it Keep well, be good, the devil roams. (h/t: Shelf Awareness)
