By Nora Cornell • December 1, 202 Danez Smith is a poet who understands aesthetics. All poets do, on some level –poetry is built on descriptions and images, using “created beauty” to translate ideas. But Smith takes it to a new level, especially in their written work. Poems in both Homie and Don’t Call UsContinue reading “The Visual Delight of Poetry”
Tag Archives: Nora Cornell
Invention and Sorrow: the role of literature in times of disconnection.
By Nora Cornell • 8 November 2020 “What I was seeing was but a part of the truth and perhaps not even the most important part; beneath these faces, … was power and sorrow, both unadmitted, unrealized, the power of inventors, the sorrow of the disconnected” (90). This line, a near-throwaway about some American tourists,Continue reading “Invention and Sorrow: the role of literature in times of disconnection.”
Rising Like Smoke: Middle School Masculinity in Mali’s Poetry
By Nora Cornell • October 8, 2020 I believe Taylor Mali’s “Tony Steinberg” poem is an ode to middle school masculinity at its best. A strange topic, to be sure, and perhaps not Mali’s intended one, but “Brave Seventh-Grade Viking Warrior” exudes the earnest and near-excessive energy characteristic of a healthy and encouraging middle schoolContinue reading “Rising Like Smoke: Middle School Masculinity in Mali’s Poetry”
Not as many feathers: Paglia, Leda, and the women of today.
Nora Cornell • September 22, 2020 Camille Paglia’s essay on Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan” is a masterclass in both interpretation and extrapolation; her breadth of analysis gives the poem a deeper meaning, and scattered literary allusions twist her writing into a criticism of the larger Western canon. At first, it feels strange to handleContinue reading “Not as many feathers: Paglia, Leda, and the women of today.”
Constructions of Gender in Literature 