New criticism residency, former Grolier owner honored, poems of the dark South

Dear all, hello, good morning, an unsettled feeling at the end of August, a finishing feeling, a strange depletion, a wondering what next, what now. This too much hush right before it all gets cooking again. Here, the college kids are pouring back into the city with their nervous parents and their suitcases. They make me feel tender. I’ve been reading and re-reading a beautiful chapbook called Black Warrior River by Lee Willow Trumpfheller and M. John Harrison’s occulty weirdout novel The Course of the Heart. You? Is the end of August weighted strangely? It’s a soft quiet Sunday morning, and here’s the literary news.

The Gothic basement of America
This country moves in an uncertain sleepwalk, in the fugue that pulls a curtain between a person and what’s intolerable. Maine-based poet Claire Millikin travels in this place, awake to the nightmare of knowing “what you’ve been offered / as a guiding light / is worse than darkness.” Her new collection, Nightlight (Unicorn), pulls open the curtain, shedding weary light on her upbringing in the South, “the Gothic basement of America,” on Sally Hemings, the woman Thomas Jefferson enslaved and began having sex with when she was fourteen years old, Edgar Allen Poe’s child bride, age thirteen (“how it must have hurt”), of the Mvskoke who lived for millennia in Georgia, where Millikin’s family “has lived on their land for centuries, / which makes me the seed of thieves.” Spoken and unspoken, one hears the cautioning, “better not to think of it,” a refrain that has so corrupted the soul fiber of this country. In all her work, Millikin reveals the ruptures, the transgressions, the scars in the soil, in the flesh, in the pink grey majesty of the mind, and reminds us here, “You cannot choose what you inherit.”

Honoring poet and former Grolier owner Ifeanyi Menkiti

In 2006, poet, philosopher, and longtime Wellesley College professor Ifeanyi Menkiti bought the Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Cambridge, saving the legendary bookstore from closure. He ran the place until 2019 when he died at age 78. If you’ve stepped into the Grolier, that small room with shelves lined high with poetry collections, you’ve felt the poet ghosts maybe, or at least seen their faces in the black and white photographs on the wall. This Thursday, August 27, is the 6^th annual Ifeanyi Menkiti Memorial Reading commemorating his legacy. The reading features Boston poet laureate Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah; Haitian-American poet, educator, and critic Patrick Sylvain; some special guests; and the evening will be moderated by poet Mary Buchinger. The reading takes place Thursday, August 27 at 6:30 pm at DiGiovanni Hall, St. Paul’s Parish, 29 Mount Auburn Street, in Cambridge. For more information click here.

New trans culture criticism residency in Portland, Maine
The Violet Institute, based in Portland, Maine, is a cultural institution focused on contemporary trans culture, and they’ve recently announced a new criticism residency. The inaugural residency involves 4-6 weeks in Portland between October 15 and December 15 of this year, and offers private accommodations and a $4000 stipend (with an addition up to $500 for travel expenses). It’s open to emerging, mid-career, and established writers “with a robust written criticism practice,” and the application involves a writing sample, a letter of intent, and a CV or narrative bio. They’re especially open to critics “with an interest in public scholarship and trans media and culture.” And the guiding question of the residency is “what is the contemporary trans canon?” The resident will present their work at a public conversation at the end of the residency, as well as lead one single-day workshop or seminar; the resident is encouraged to engage with Maine’s creative community. Applications are due by August 31. For more information and to apply, click here.

Books of note out this week

The Shame Is Over: A Personal History by Anja Meulenbelt, translated from Dutch by Ann Oosthuizen (Astra House).

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore (Liveright).

The Anniversary by Andrea Bajani, translated from Italian by Geoffrey Brock (Other).

Booksellers’ best: Staff picks from New England independent bookstores
Thea at Lala Books in Lowell, Massachusetts, recommends Cooking in the Wrong Century by Teresa Präauer, translated from German by Eleanor Updergraff (Pushkin): “This was a fun story to live in for a while, kind of like watching a silent art house film. I really enjoyed the second person sections—those are really hard to do well and they were perfect here. They felt nostalgic in a déjà vu sort of way—I could directly relate to almost none of the experiences described but the feelings behind them were intimately familiar. It wasn’t a perfect dinner party, but it was a real one, that left me feeling full and warm.”

Thank you for being here. Thank you for being part of this. You’re helping keep the literary ecosystem healthy. If this work matters to you, if you appreciate what I’m up to, please help me keep it going with a paid subscription. With my gratitude always, and my warmth to you in these waning weeks of summer.