Emily Montgomery

We must feature the arresting, lovely piece "Something Beautiful" by Emily Montgomery in Rattle, issue 43, Spring 2014. It has an indelible feeling and image of the far East, of the tropics and the ancient beauty of Asia. It really reminds me of Tagore, the famous Bengali poet.

Here's an excerpt, this is a great part:

I wanted to save something beautiful for you.

The last three jewels of glistening pomegranate

balanced in the palm of my hand before I ate them.

The morning birdsong in [...]

John Poch

I knew we had to recommend this poem as I read it--the great piece "The Difference at Cafe D'Arthe" by John Poch in Rattle, issue 43, Spring 2014. This type of poem shows it's intelligent in small luring movements, drawing you in until it explodes in incredible moments. For example, it begins with an excellent line and a epigram/beginning notation:

Seville, Spain

Except for coffee, light never forgives the dark.
[...]

Here, at the bar, even a driver of dangerous liquids

can find a robust, fertile rest so river deep,

his gaze darkens [...]

Then the poem continues on, swirling like Andrei Codrescu's infamous descriptions of NOLA until it gets to an incredible ending section that is excellent:

[...]

This one’s lover must be rough, her hair the scent

of a midnight sea-port, her love-talk

a dirty old story of graffiti on graffiti.

When she dances for him some nights, she must look like

the aftermath of math. The answer, naked

and not wanting. [...]

Film reads

Two great blogs to read for film lovers are:

MUBI Notepad: The well known site for film lovers has a great, really fun and varied blog, with tons of articles. For example, there's a great early Christopher Nolan and Batman film discussion here, which is really quite interesting despite the fact that it's, in a nominal sense, critical. If you step away from the sense of 'enjoying' a film and try to enjoy a discussion of it's dissection, this is for you. Critical verbosity is so fun to read, if you're in the mood.

Rouge: The great online journal has tons of interesting pieces, like a mysterious, appropriately post-modern one about the famous, classic 1961 French film Marienbad. Here's a great article about how many disparate films have the same rooms and locations, creating a strange shared universe.