Tag Archives: Post-Modernism

Conrad Aiken and the struggle of consciousness

Posted on April 27, 2017 by Mark Kerstetter

even one’s newness is old —Conrad Aiken   One of the first things that comes up in a google search of the name “Conrad Aiken” (right next to we found Conrad Aiken) is a review of his Selected Poems in … Continue reading →

Posted in modernism, poetry essay | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Out of the Shadows with Maldoror

Posted on July 29, 2016 by Mark Kerstetter

Parle, et, puisque, d’après tes vœux les plus chers, l’on ne souffrirait pas, dis en quoi consisterait alors la vertu, idéal que chacun s’efforce d’atteindre, si ta langue est faite comme celle des autres hommes. —Lautréamont, Les Chants de Maldoror … Continue reading →

Posted in book review, modernism, poetry essay | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Conversations with a Clown by Michael Welzenbach

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Mark Kerstetter

Conversations with a Clown, published in 1991, is the only novel by art critic Michael Welzanbach who died far too young in 2001. The novel concerns art critic Corry Peters who lives in Washington D.C., has profoundly ambivalent feelings about … Continue reading →

Posted in book review, modernism | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

An Exhortation to Silence: Comparing Mulholland Drive to The Blind Owl

Posted on May 15, 2016 by Mark Kerstetter

David lynch’s film Mulholland Drive and Sadegh Hedayat’s novel The Blind Owl are essentially the same story.

Posted in book review, film essay | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Bataille on Baudelaire

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Mark Kerstetter

I belong to a turbulent generation, born to literary life in the tumult of surrealism. In the years after the Great War there was a feeling which was about to overflow. Literature was stifling within its limitations and seemed pregnant … Continue reading →

Posted in book review, poetry essay | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Rousselian Cliffhangers and Other Challenges in Michael Brodsky’s ***

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Mark Kerstetter

*** is a novel by Michael Brodsky published in 1994. The title consists solely of three asterisks, making it virtually unpronounceable and unsearchable on the internet. Rather than pass over the name in silence while reading (interesting that the mind … Continue reading →

Posted in book review | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Kenneth Goldsmith User’s Manual Part 2

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Mark Kerstetter

nobility…. is a violence from within that protects us from a violence without. It is the imagination pressing back against the pressure of reality. —Wallace Stevens, from The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words [page 665 The Library of … Continue reading →

Posted in modernism, poetry essay | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Jerry Lewis as Mockingbird

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Mark Kerstetter

The Lewis character is always potentially anybody —Chris Fujiwara There is no easy way to shake that schmuck you sleep with at night. No matter how you toss and turn he’s always there. —Jerry Lewis Jerry Lewis, love him or … Continue reading →

Posted in film essay | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

On Not Bringing His Christmas Stocking Out of Storage

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Mark Kerstetter

(an analogue to John Ashbery’s On His Reluctance to Take Down the Christmas Ornaments and a response to Matthew Buckley Smith’s charge that the poem doesn’t make any sense) Can you feel a sense of it A package unopened An … Continue reading →

Posted in mockingbird poem, poem, poetry essay | Tagged , , , , , , | 22 Comments

Mondays with Pessoa: Introduction

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Mark Kerstetter

The further I go into Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet the more apparent it becomes that this is a book to be absorbed deeply and contemplated over time. I find myself marking nearly every page and marginal notes can … Continue reading →

Posted in Mondays with Pessoa | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments