Writer In Residence

Month: January 2015

  • “Papa is gone, not Wolinski”

    “After his death, his daughter said, ‘Papa is gone, not Wolinski’” (from “The Pen vs. The Gun,” by Philip Gourevitch, The New Yorker, Jan 8). Gourevitch’s piece could do with less hagiography, and I don’t think he sat with the gun/pen question long enough to resolve it with true insight. But: this daughter’s voice. We […]

  • “I haven’t got the words”…

    Free Expression Matters. Here’s this, with which I begin every writing class I teach, and applicable to any art: “When we say ‘I haven’t got the words,’ the lack is not in the language nor in our emotional state, it is in the breakdown between the two. The poet heals that breakdown and not only […]