R A L P H The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities Volume
XXXIV, Number 4 Mid-Spring 2003 |
NEW LISTINGS
Shinto,
How to Be Alone, and,
Carole Maso's Aureole.
REVIEWS
The "Tamarit" Poems of Federico García Lorca
The Lives and Careers of John Rechy
Great Reviews of the Past
BRIEF REVIEWS
ARTICLES
READINGS Great Readings of the Past
POETRY
Great Poems of the Past
LETTERS THE OFFICIAL RALPH
GENERAL INDEX
A PITHY SAMPLE
SUBSCRIBE
The Good Men
"Once our author has
set this milk-train in motion,
what with the three generations,
the Inquisition, the dallying of
the religious heavies and
the sudden appearance of syphilis ---
it's a little hard to put on the brakes
without running off the tracks."
"It is this raising up of the image
of the Granada of the Moors, their singing,
their story-telling, their music,
all engraved into the walls of the structure
that lies at the heart of Granada,
a great Arabic castle left over
from so many centuries before."
"It was the most recent photograph, 1998.
Looking like he just inched past forty.
Did my eyes bug out at that one
(he was born two years before me).
Maybe this guy has something
I should be learning, I thought."
Vichy
France, Memory, and the Second World War
"During the years 1940 - 1944
there was much temporizing, turning away,
pretending that horrors were not taking place.
Thus this is a tale of collective amnesia."
Children of the Depression,
"The Squabble" by Nikolai Gogol, and
The Pacific Coast Ranges
Our Graduation Speech
Part I
"Life is a river.
Sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down.
Sometimes it is stormy and rough,
at others, calm, smooth, glassy.
Oh, there are days when the channel narrows,
throws up great waves. On others,
it opens up, and one can pass as in a dream ---
whole months go by when the fresh breezes
carry one etc. etc. blah, blah..."
Part II
"Yellow squash is best cooked
like my granny did.
Chop off the ends and cut it in squares or
rounds and boil it until it's sluggish.
Put it in a drainer and
squish it a bit to get out the water.
Transfer it to a pot with
hot butter and freshly chopped basil.
Heat it a little more and
grind in some black pepper."
A Sky Filled with Japanese Zebras
"Fryers were required
to take a vow of pottery.
If you disagreed with the church
you were accused of hear say
and treated to excommunication.
An important example of this was
the Catheter movement in southern France."
Fifty-three books,
dubbed "The Outside Canon,"
a list of the best travel writing
compiled in 1996 by Miles Harvey and
the editors of Outside Magazine.
A Native History of Early America
"European empires in North America
allowed Indians more room to manoeuvre,
more room to adjust to change and
more room to determine how they would live.
Imperialists didn't do this because
they were embracing some early form of multiculturalism;
they did so because Indian peoples remained a force ---
or forces --- that could not be ignored."
Song of the Morning Market
"What gray moon at nine / bled your cheek?
Who gathers up your seeds / that sets the snow into flames?
What tiny point of cactus / murders your mirror?
Under the Elvira arch /
I want to see you go by
to drink your eyes / and begin to cry."
"But the branches are happy,
the branches are like us.
They are not thinking about rain.
Suddenly, as if they were trees, they are sleeping.
Sitting in water up to their knees,
two valleys awaiting the Fall."
"Poetry (In Motion)" and "Photograph"
"Your family carefully posed
Around the backyard swimming pool
Which will one day swallow
Your younger brother, Herbert,
Who will lie, motionless,
At the bottom of the deep end,
Before he is discovered by you."
Robert Penn Warren,
The Fictional L. W. Milam, and
The FOLIO
Paradox-of-the-Month
A complete list of all books reviewed in RALPH,
arranged by title, including author, subject, and publisher,
plus a listing of all readings, articles and poems
that have appeared since 1994.
of our most notorious reviews
as collected in the hard-copy
"FOLIO"
Help perpetuate honest, noisy, pesky book reviews.
With your $25 subscription, you get
a free copy of one of the titles from
Mho & Mho Works
(which will soon be out of business,
thank god.)
Submitting Books The best way to get books to RALPH for review. Submitting Reviews Suggestions for would-be reviewers --- and payment schedule. History RALPH didn't spring full-blown from the brows of the gods: We've been around (in different guises) for over twenty-five years. The Fessenden Fund Describing the good works of RALPH's official godparent |
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