Parnassus: Poetry in Review

08/22/2017

06/23/2016

Parnassus Editor Max Ritvo's masterly poem, "Poem to My Litter" has just been published in this week's edition of The New Yorker! http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/27/poem-to-my-litter-by-max-ritvo

Poetry: “I wish it was perfect, but sometimes the death we see / doesn’t happen when we try it again in my body.”

07/08/2015

The latest issue of Parnassus was mentioned in this recent New York Times article! You can read The Red Wheelbarrow essay and other wonderful poems and reviews by purchasing Volume 34 at http://parnassusreview.com/subscribe.

A professor and a historian discovered the identity of the unseen wheelbarrow owner in a classic poem.

12/21/2014

To read Parnassus is to spend lon leisurely hours without leaving your home in the company of exciting minds thinking about science and poetry, amoebas and galaxies, grifters and altruists, Darwin and Bob Dylan, line breaks and limericks. The subjects are predictable only for their unpredictability; the prose is consistently passionate, analytically stringent, witty, and utterly readable. If following William Carlos Williams, “nothing whips your blood like poetry,” here are a some tempting gifts you can buy at the Parnassus bazaar for yourself or friends:

A single copy of Volume 33 can be purchased for only $12.

A two-year subscription, volumes 34 and 35, costs just $27.

Copies of our last five, highly acclaimed issues (volumes 29-33), list price $75, is available for $50.

If you’re looking to give a spectacular and singular gift to a special person, here are two irresistible suggestions:

A beautiful French Fold printing of of Seamus Heaney’s lovely poem “The Loose Box,” signed by the late Nobel Laureate, which usually sells for $295, is on offer for $245, a substantial discount.

A gorgeous broadside of U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan’s wry poem “Odd Blocks,” signed by the poet and illustrated and signed by artist Robert Berlind, can be had for $150, a saving of $45. On all purchases we will pay for postage and enclose a gift note, which you can customize.

Any additional donations, fully tax deductible, will be greatly appreciated.

Paying is simple:

Make checks payable to Poetry in Review Foundation and mail to

Parnassus: Poetry in Review
205 West 89th Street, Apt. 8F
New York, NY 10024-1835

If you prefer to pay by credit card, just go to our website—http://parnassusreview.com/subscribe—and follow the links to PayPal. While you’re there, don’t forget to browse the poems and essays, artwork and special features on display.

We wish you and yours a wonderful holiday and a healthy, joyful 2015.

All the best,

Herbert Leibowitz,
Editor & Publisher

10/06/2014

Editor Herbert Leibowitz will be teach a class on Berryman, Lowell, Sexton, and Plath at the 92Y this November. To learn more, go here:

http://www.92y.org/Class/Reading-Berryman-Lowell-Plath-Sexton.aspx

01/17/2014

Don't miss the LAST TWO PERFORMANCES (tonight and tomorrow) of THUMBPRINT, the brilliant new opera with a libretto by Parnassus contributor Susan Yankowitz: http://prototypefestival.org/show/thumbprint/

In this world premiere, an illiterate woman is gang-raped as retribution for an ‘honor crime’ her brother allegedly committed. She doesn't surrender. She becomes the first woman in Pakistan to bring her attackers to justice. Her name is Mukhtar.

01/08/2014

The stirring dramatic monologue by Susan Yankowitz, “The Thumbprint of Mukhtar Mai,” featured in Parnassus Volume 32, Nos. 1 & 2, tells the story of an illiterate Pakistani peasant who is gang-raped in retaliation for an alleged s*x crime by her twelve-year-old brother.

Yankowitz has adapted this moving story into an opera libretto with music composed by Kamala Sankaram. The opera will première tomorrow January 10, 2014 as part of the Prototype Festival of new contemporary music. A special performance followed by a discussion with human rights advocates and the subj Mukhtar Mai, via Skype, is scheduled for January 11 at 4:00 p.m.

For further information, additional performance dates, and tickets, go to Protoypefestival.org

Additional link: Thumbprint interview with Susan Yankowitz and Kamala Sankaram: http.//vimeo.com/79404538

An excerpt of the title aria can be heard at soundcloud.com/saturninus/aria-from-the-thumbprint-of

07/26/2013

A few Parnassians and Parnassus contributors will be reading at the NYC Poetry Festival this weekend.

The Poetry Society of New York is throwing its third annual poetry festival on Governor’s Island this Saturday and Sunday. The festival “showcases all of the different formats, aesthetics, and personalities of New York City reading series and collectives, in one place at one time. The festival inten...

07/18/2013

On behalf of Parnassus, Margot Lurie extends congratulations to Kay Ryan on her recent receipt of a National Humanities Medal.

Ryan adds the medal to a Pulitzer and a MacArthur fellowship, as well as a two-year stint (2008–2010) as our Poet Laureate. But while she may be wreathed in laurels, it’s prickly Joshua trees that illustrate the cover of her selected poems, attesting both to her attachment to California and to the t...

07/09/2013

Sarah Lindsay's poem "Adaptive Behavior," from Volume 33 was featured in Poetry Daily yesterday! A link if you haven't had the chance to read it yet.

Sarah Lindsay is a Lannan Literary Fellow whose books include Twigs and Knucklebones (Copper Canyon Press). Her new collection is forthcoming from Copper Canyon. She recently gave an evolution-themed poetry reading for Iowa City Darwin Day 2013.

07/08/2013

On long-time contributors John Foy’s “Poets & Jobs” at Best American Poetry (goo.gl/6HxCC), with a special guest appearance by STC.

The long-time Parnassus contributor John Foy is guestblogging at Best American Poetry this week. In his maiden post, he takes a look at some poets who have held down “real” jobs, by which he means (but not pejoratively) work outside the literary sphere. Going from the list of “usual suspects” he’s c...

07/05/2013

Mark Edmundsen's indictment of contemporary poetry in Harper's set tongues wagging around the internet. Reporting for Parnassus's blog, Castalia, Jeremy Axelrod explores the reaction, as well as the long, lively history of the critic's lament.

Every age’s poetry is bad, but each age disappoints its critics in its own way. If you follow the literary blogosphere, you know that Mark Edmundsen just weighed in on this age with a tweedily earnest essay in Harper’s, called “Poetry Slam, or The Decline of American Verse.” Perhaps it struck close…