NEW REVIEWS
Washington Sculpture
"It might be considered
oxymoronic to look for
a statue in Washington, D. C.
that could be rated as pompous.
But we think, in all fairness,
that the statue of General Logan
takes the cake."

Best American Travel Writing --- 2009
"Many Texas barbecue fanatics
have a strong belief in
the beneficial properties
of accumulated grease."

Prisons of Poverty
"Here I am referring to
the terrorism fomented
by those low-cost shows
of dubious morality:
those programs referred to
by TV executives as
criminal entertainment."

Pipestone
"The Indian kids
and white kids all
cheer when the bugler
sounds 'charge.'
Joe Bebeau gets mad at us
for cheering the cavalry.
Hey, you guys,
you're cheering
for the wrong side."

Revolution on Paper
"Among the most testy
was David Alfaro Siqueiros,
finally forced to go
into exile because of
his attempt to murder
the anti-Stalinist refugee
Leon Trotsky."

The Blue Tattoo
"Then there is the notion
that people of color could
transform whites into
people of color ---
ethnically and decoratively,
as a means of exploitation
and degradation."

The Edge of Physics
"Strange beasties ---
the particles, not the scientists ---
with names like antiproton,
dark matter, fermion,
muon, boson."

Résistance
Part I
"She's in a place
of no escape, and
those running the show are
dyed-in-the-wool, no-kidding,
without-a-doubt beasts ---
capable of any and all violence,
to the body,
to the soul."
Part II
"That old crone,
limping along in her
preposterous clumping shoes and
with her hair scraped
into such a grotesque style ---
that old crone is me."

BRIEF REVIEWS
My Men
Ramparts Magazine
Is Life Like This?
Upgraded to Serious

Great Reviews of the Past
The Age of Gold
"Many of the
heroes of the day
were nothing but
opportunists and scoundrels,
one of the worst being John Frémont,
who declared war on Mexico
long before the U. S. was
prepared to do so."

LETTERS
Dada
Adrienne Rich
The Winter War

MORE LETTERS
Music of
The Middle Ages

EVEN MORE LETTERS
Cryptic Letters of the Month
Rototillers and
One in a Million,
Baby

YET EVEN MORE LETTERS
Letters We Never Finished Reading
Burkina-Faso
Gold Mine

ARTICLE
African Taxi Opera
"Getting a taxi here
is not much of a problem.
But getting in
the taxi can be.
Exiting can also
be a challenge."

READINGS
The Demonic Myth of
The Prison-Industrial Complex
"Anchored in a
conspiratorial vision of history,
this thesis suffers from
four major lacunæ that
undercut its analytic import
and ruin its practical pertinence."

Difficult Days
"Did I tell you, that
Difficult Days
is going to be translated
into Portuguese? That's the
seventeenth language,
not counting Korea
which pirated it."

POETRY
So Quickly Justine
"Good evening, Justine,
I have come to see you so let me
in to tell you that I know that you're alone
and that you as much as I desire it
this love with which I undress and
now possess you"

Great Poems of the Past
Amblyopia
"You'll lead me by the hand to bed
The hearth of my cooling days;
You'll speak to me of the darkening hours,
Ask if my soul is warm enough,
If this night is black enough.
The two of us can contemplate
The two dark coals of the sun."

THE OFFICIAL RALPH
Paradox-of-the-Month

GENERAL INDEX
All the back-issues of RALPH,
including titles of books under review,
along with author, subject, and publisher,
plus links to readings, articles, and poems
that have appeared on-line
since 1994.

A PITHY SAMPLE
of our most notorious reviews
as collected in the hard-copy
"FOLIO"

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