Critical Notes

Roundup 16

By Jane Ciabattari

Happy Birthday #90 to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, NBCC Sandrof awardee. Critical Mass on 50th anniversary of “Coney Island of the Mind” here. His most recent interview on Critical Mass here.

Maureen McLane on “Twisting and Turning.”

Rebecca Mead profiles Portland’s twin brother poets, Michael and Matthew Dickman. (Think Geoffrey and Tobias Wolff, Frank and Malachy McCourt?)

Yusef Komunyakaa talks to Seattle teens. Mary Ann Gwinn tags along.

Manja expert Charles Solomon explains “Gimmick!”

Calm yourself down with this classic British poster, via The Guardian.

Geeta Sharma Jensen on the next chapter for Milwaukee’s Schwartz Bookshops.

Lizzie Skurnick on Eula Biss’s “Notes from No Man’s Land,” “personal yet dazzlingly eclectic.”

Bill Williams in the Boston Globe on Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save: Acting Now To End World Poverty

Book Club Queen questionsTim Brown re “Walking Man.”

In the Chicago Tribune, Art Winslow reviews Columbine, by Dave Cullen

Last week’s exits: Fritz Lanham from the Houston Chronicle, Gail Caldwell and David Mehegan from the Boston Globe (Mehegan talks about it here.)