"Persistent Voices" lives up to its name

Once I made it through the Oscars coverage in today's Style section of the Washington Post, I found a dance review by Celia Wren of what sounds like a fascinating multimedia performance by Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company. Presented this past Saturday as part of the Atlas Intersections Festival, it was inspired by the anthology Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS--which was co-edited by none other than our very own Philip Clark!  (We read it as one of our third-Wednesday books during 2010 and 2011.)

The good news is that the piece will be repeated at 1:30 p.m. this coming Saturday, March 5, at the Atlas Theater (1333 H St. NE).  I plan to attend and hope to see some of you there!

The James Family Closet

Colm Toibin on Henry James is always interesting to read. Here's a new article in the Guardian on his family's attempt to keep him in the closet.

Carl Phillips

—a worthy addition to our list: Whitman, Houseman, Cavafy, Seth, Gunn, Crane, Merill, Ginsberg, Schneiderman, O'Hara, Bidart …

I hope readers will give him a chance.

"Silverchest" Links

Carl Phillips' 2013 poetry collection, Silverchest, which we'll be discussing on Feb. 17, can most certainly stand on its own without any critical apparatus.  That said, reading this slender volume (and rereading it) only whetted my appetite to learn more about the poet and his work, so here are a few links for your consideration.

To hear Phillips read the title poem in the collection  

To visit the poet's faculty page (Washington University in St. Louis)

To read a New Yorker review

To read a Lambda Literary review

Glass Menage @ Ford's

From John —

The production of The Glass Menagerie at Ford's Theatre is superb. At the Super Bowl Sunday matinee it got a well-deserved standing ovation. Strong performances by all four actors, including Madeleine Potter as Amanda. Unobtrusive, effective staging. Very interesting to see after our discussions of Williams. The play runs through February 21.

The program advertises two other local Williams productions this spring:
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Round House Theatre, March 30-April 24
A Streetcar Named Desire at Everyman Theatre (Baltimore), April 13-June 12.

Whiteout!

Snowbound, BookMen continue their Mad Pilgrimmage of the Flesh.

The enormousness of "enormity"

Can't imagine how I've managed to be ignorant (blissfully) of this nit-pick. No one who's serious about such things can be without Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (first published in 1989). Everyone may have their [sic] preferences and I have mine, but it's foolish to presume that they amount to much more than that. Webster's concluding paragraph from its documentary four columns is:

We agree with these two commentators [one of whom, William Safire]. We have seen that there is no clear basis for the "rule" at all [a common conclusion]. We suggest that you follow the writers rather than the critics: writers use enormity with a richness and subtlety that the critics have failed to take account of. The stigmatized sense is entirely standard and has been for more than a century and a half.

My purpose in this post is more to call attention to the work cited than to engage in the dispute. I haven't yet summoned sufficient interest to read the full entry.