Jeffrey Zuckerman

Translator math is starting another translation to take a break from the first one...

...then starting a third translation to take a break from the second one, and so on in a never-ending Möbius strip.

A Clean Break - The Rumpus I needed not to love poetry anymore, needed not to miss having loved poetry.

Happy 100th, James Merrill.

My thoughts about the man, a decade ago: therumpus.net/2015/10/01/a...

NATIVE
Jessica Fisher

left out overnight
the cry like a cawing
a voice calling
at the edge of the meadow
the uncultivated ditch
narrow as a grave
we lay there in rain
the weeds above us
native to this

Very fair—this would definitely fall under "don't truly need them"! And I'll be the one to tell you to apply if you've got the project for it! Wait until the next deadline for MacDowell, it's way better than Yaddo ;)

Are there people at these residencies who don't truly need them? Absolutely. But I was surprised by how much the high-profile writers also on residency with me appreciated this setup. It gave them space that nobody else was giving them because they all assumed the writers had lots of free time.

2) Having an explicit, externally imposed residency provided a buffer that allowed us to defer routine requests and other obligations that eat into our days. (Renting a cabin miiiiight serve as such an excuse, but other people DEFINITELY listened when I said that I was at a residency for six weeks.)

1) When someone else was in charge of preparing the food and handling other day-to-day matters, it became clear how much headspace I'd unwittingly been giving over to cooking, buying groceries, cleaning up, etc. A lot, a LOT more creative work got done in a very short period as a result.

I held off on applying for those for SO LONG because I thought doing a residency wouldn't be very different from my stretches when I'm *deep* in a project and ignoring emails, etc. Then I got into one and decided to try it. Turns out two things matter a surprising amount:

Super touched to receive the physical Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize certificate in the mail… should I get it framed??

Allez les méduses !!! 🪼🪼🪼

some of you are looksmaxxing when you need to be booksmaxxing

et n'aie pas honte de tes taches
ce sont mes larmes
va
salue pour moi les lieux que j'aime
tes pieds me porteront à leur rythme dans Rome

—Ovide, TRISTES (8), traduites du latin par Marie Darrieussecq (2008)

pas de parchemin enduit d'huile de cèdre
c'est pour les petits livres heureux
toi
mon pauvre recueil
tu portes ma misère et tu portes mon deuil
va-t'en échevelé mal poli tout barbu
car tu n'es pas de ceux dont les aspérités
sont lissées à la pierre ponce

petit livre
hélas
va sans moi dans la ville où je suis interdit
va tout simple
sans ornements savants
comme il sied aux exilés
un habit de tous les jours
les déshérités ne portent pas la pourpre
le deuil ne se fait pas en rouge
pas de signet d'ivoire pas de titre au minium

Steller's Sea Cow. © Leonhard Stejneger (1851–1943)

The Transformative Power of the White ‘Race Traitor’

"The first person to be executed for treason in the US was not a spy or someone who sold secrets to a foreign government. It was not a Confederate general who took up arms against his government. It was an abolitionist named John Brown." from @nhannahjones.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/m...

FWIW, newspaper book review sections are part of the mission of journalism. Every year, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry titles tell us something we didn't know before, or advance the craft of verse and prose in new ways. This is the purpose of reviews: to alert us to the shaping of our culture.

We are proud to unveil the world’s longest underwater timelapse, starting May 1st 2023 and running 1,000 days through January 28, 2026. This 10fps period covers summer 2023’s coral bleaching mortality event, but then recovering and growing through ‘24 & ‘25 into ‘26 #coralcitycamera

There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself—not just sometimes, but always.

drawings that touched on the pieces being gathered back up, on all the pieces of his heart. 'Eat all the pieces of me so I may always stay with you.' He wanted to fuse with Isaac, for them, he and him, to become the two reunited pieces of a titanic body, a god of prehistoric times..."

"Gabriel, certainly the more poetic of the two, was seized on this evening by a wild euphoria, by enthusiasm, and was drawing, on his map, ibises above the country, and hearts, and why not, cherubs, and here the thousand pieces of Osiris, there the breath of Isis,

Absolutely not trying to make the terrible news of the closure of Washington Post's Books coverage about me or anything, but I cannot stress how bad this is for books. The biggest divide between Big 5 and independent/nonprofit press books is not quality--it's the marketing spend.

A Day for Gaza Today, The Nation is turning over its website exclusively to stories from Gaza and its people. This is why.

Media coverage of Gaza has plummeted. So today on @thenation.com, we're doing something pretty special: we're only running pieces by people in and from Gaza.

We're calling it "A Day for Gaza." You can find links to all of the incredible pieces here. Please read! www.thenation.com/article/worl...

"Their love, their families, their friendships, were governed by a watchtower and a piece of paper and a soldier and corpses, inside and out. Their worlds were shattered, or cracked, or even, if you will, in pieces like Gabriel’s heart."

"In the wake of seeing Isaac, Gabriel felt absolutely, completely, irrevocably destroyed by solitude. He had walked into Fátima’s house calm, and had walked out with a heart in pieces."

"The day is like wide water, without sound..."
Wallace Stevens, "Sunday Morning" in HARMONIUM (1923)

How the Louvre’s Stolen Jewels Turned Up at Paris Couture Week, Courtesy of Schiaparelli Schiaparelli designer Daniel Roseberry welcomes Vanity Fair into a fitting ahead of his Paris Haute Couture Week show. “We haven’t shown anything like this in a long time,” he says, “but it was time t...

“What does anger look like when it’s used for beauty?” www.vanityfair.com/style/story/...

lol I JUST saw a Kirkus review that went right for the jugular (about the forthcoming translation of a book I'd read in the French) and my reaction was not horror but "wow, the reviewer really, really wanted a book that this book was never going to be"?

So... this is kind of on-brand for Kirkus?

Is it good when the local newspaper publishes a “How to Identify Which Kind of Gas You’re Breathing” explainer?

1. 1 am a 29-year-old resident of the lin Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have lived in Minneapolis since 2024, when I moved to the city to begin my medical residency. I am a licensed pediatrician, and I have been practicing pediatric medicine in the city since I moved here. 2. On January 24, 2026, at approximately 9:00 am CST, I was awoken by the sound of cars honking and whistles blowing. Shortly after I awoke, I heard screaming from outside my window. I saw several ICE agents and civilians yelling at each other. 3. One civilian was standing in front of a parked car on the side of the road. I saw him yelling at the ICE agents, but I did not see him attack the agents or brandish a weapon of any kind 4. Suddenly, an ICE agent shoved him to the ground. My view of the altercation was partially obstructed, but after a few seconds, I saw at least four ICE agents point guns at the man. I then saw the agents shoot the man at least six or seven times. 5. Initially, I was stunned. From what I could see from my apartment, there was absolutely no need for any violence, let alone lethal force by multiple officers. I immediately put on my boots and coat, ran outside, and approached ICE agents who were near the victim.

6. The scene was chaotic. Many civilians were screaming and honking. Over the noise, I informed the ICE agents that I am a physician, and I asked to assess the victim. 7. At first, the ICE agents wouldn't let me through. They repeatedly asked me for my physician's license, which I obviously didn't have. But none of the ICE agents who were near the victim were performing CPR, and I could tell that the victim was in critical condition. I insisted that the agents let me assess him. Normally, I would not have been so persistent, but as a physician, I felt a professional and moral obligation to help this man, especially since none of the agents were helping him. 8. Finally, one agent agreed to let me assess the victim. He patted me down to "make sure I didn't have a weapon" and then let me approach the victim. 9. As I approached, I saw that the victim was lying on his side and was surrounded by several ICE agents. I was confused as to why the victim was on his side, because that is not standard practice when a victim has been shot. Checking for a pulse and administering CPR is standard practice. Instead of doing either of those things, the ICE agents appeared to be counting his bullet wounds. 10.1 asked the ICE agents if the victim had a pulse, and they said they did not know. I then asked the agents to make space so I could assess the victim.

11. The victim had at least three bullet wounds in his back. I asked the ICE agents to turn the victim from his side to his back. From that position, I saw an additional gunshot wound on the victim's upper left chest and another possible gunshot wound on his neck. 12. I checked for a pulse, but I did not feel one. I immediately began CPR. Shortly after I started compressions, EMS personnel arrived and took over. 13.1 remained at the scene for about five more minutes, but protesters began to gather and the situation seemed to be escalating, so I left and returned to my apartment. 14. When I returned to my apartment, I was extremely distraught. I was sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. Eventually, I called my sister, who lives in a nearby suburb. I called her for comfort and because I did not feel safe in my apartment; I wanted to see if I could stay with her for the day and maybe even a few days. 15.1 also sought advice from a friend who works for the City of Minneapolis. He recommended that I shelter in place because the situation outside my apartment was so dangerous. I was going to follow his advice, but then ICE agents deployed tear gas on the crowd that had gathered below, and the tear gas began seeping into my apartment.

BREAKING: A young doctor who lives near where Alex Pretti, a nurse, was killed by ICE says in a declaration he saw the shooting, went out to help, was not let through at first then patted down before being let by, and was apparently the first to try and provide any medical assistance to Pretti.

The Grey King, honestly… he opening page is etched in my memory!