An Eclectic Journal of the Arts
Written in the Mirror Watch the over-the-top Douglas Sirk melodramas of the 1950s for the color, costume, design, emotion — for sheer guilty pleasure. If you catch yourself over-indulging, pull back from the spectacle to wonder how he does it, what technical magic or tricks are at work. Or lean in from another angle to […]
Myra Malkin’s Sunset Grand Couturier Review by Hilary Sideris Sunset Grand Couturier, published by Broadstone Books in 2022, is Myra Malkin’s second poetry collection. Her first, No Lifeguard on Duty (2010), won Main Street Rag’s Author’s Choice Chapbook Prize. Though not “formal” poetry, Malkin’s free verse lines do scan. Weighty, witty, dark, fact-filled, and referential […]
So, another year, another variant, and we trudge on across the tundra. Courage, creativity, and, yes, peace, love, and understanding are needed now more than . . . Well, they’re needed. In that spirit of hopeful trudging, Spinozablue offers new literature, literary criticism, and home-brewed paintings. Robert Mueller brings us his unique take on Petrarch, […]
Petrarcan Naissance by Robert Mueller Here is a poem from the great sequence of poetry using the native Italian tongue, instead of being written in Latin, by Francesco Petrarca and covering much of a life lived during the 14th century. Readers will know him as Petrarch. The time he lived is important to the extent […]
From Mary Orovan a Touch of e.e. cummings if You Like by Robert Mueller These Elective Affinities, what are they? You do not have to believe ce personnage distingué in Goethe’s novel who has a way of explaining things. Thus der Hauptmann, supreme intellect with superb practical bent, can speak of a situation to […]
How to Do Urban, by New Yorker of Choice Two young women, art students, funnel into the bleak and lead-like dreary light of the subway car grasping in their hands, by the frames on which they have been crafted, smallish paintings (maybe 12 by 16). Apparitions they are, the young artists, and holdings of […]
Why Did You Write That? Anyone who has written fiction or poetry probably has been asked at one time or another, “Why did you write that?” I’ve been asked that question and I have never been able to provide an answer. Some writers may set out to write a poem that will address an […]
Bang on the Chasm by Robert Mueller I am wondering about new jazz and new art music, and separating them entirely for the convenience of entertaining these thoughts. I am thinking about consorting with a difference even though what I have to say about one has to be true of the other […]
by Jill Magi Last fall I found myself at the gate of an archive. Remembering something from my labor and union past and thinking about my work life at present, I came across the on-line finding guides for the Wagner Labor Archive at New York University. The writings here are a warm-up to my […]
Poetic Implications: Synchronicity and The Language of Meaning A Personal Reflection by Sean Howard Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Cape Breton University November 2008 A few months ago, I began work on a project I’ve been putting off for over a year: an account of my time in the clutches of what Jungian analysts […]