The New Criterion
(Mobile Version)

April 2004 Volume 22, Number 8  

Notes & Comments

"Neville again"
On the heinous bombings in Madrid and their despicable consequences.

It's always worse than you think
On the degradation of high-culture in the UK’s most respectable publications and institutions. Can it get more depressing in the US?

Frederick Morgan, 1922-2004
On the loss of a great friend and contributor to The New Criterion.

The New Criterion on poetry
On this month's extended poetry issue.


Features

Of lapdogs & loners: American poetry today
by Eric Ormsby
On the distinctive state of poetry in America. The eighth of our series “Lengthened shadows: America and Its Institutions in the Twenty-first Century.”

Elizabeth Bishop: from coterie to canon
by Dana Gioia
On the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop & the “important but elusive aspects of contemporary literary culture” that her canonization has revealed.

The morality of Anthony Hecht
by David Yezzi
On the complexity & significance of Anthony Hecht’s “moral orientation.”

The three voices of contemporary poetry
by Charles Martin
On the survival & well-being of the three voices of contemporary poetry as proposed by T. S. Eliot.

Free of our humbug: notes on Basil Bunting
by Christian Wiman

Reflections on the oldest profession
by Theodore Dalrymple
On the ubiquitous subject of crime & prostitution in the literary world.


Poems

The well or the cup
by Kay Ryan

Thieves
by Kay Ryan

The Material
by Kay Ryan

Shipwreck
by Kay Ryan

Mowers
by W. S. Di Piero

Christopher Columbus Park
by W. S. Di Piero

Public transit
by Ben Downing


Theater

Fiddling with Fiddler
by Mark Steyn
Mark Steyn examines the new stage designs in, and context of, Leveaux’s revival of Fiddler.


Art

An island paradise in Boston
by Karen Wilkin
On “Gauguin Tahiti” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, & its successful attempt to dismiss many of the myths concerning Gaugins’s travels to the South Pacific.


Music

New York chronicle
by Jay Nordlinger
On the Cleveland Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the Vienna Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, the Royal Concertgebouw at Carnegie Hall & Jean-Yves Thibaudet at Carnegie Hall.

Concert Note
by Patrick J. Smith
On Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera House.


The Media

"Root-causeism" & electability
by James Bowman
On the “po-mo primary” & “the seductive Siren-song” underlying the democratic party’s views on the war against terrorism .


Books

America--c'est moi! Alfred Kazin on American literature
by Hilton Kramer
A review of Alfred Kazin’s America: Critical and Personal Writings, edited by Ted Solotaroff.

As seen on TV
by Mark Bauerlein
A review of The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved, by Todd Oppenheimer .

Race: no such thing
by Paul Gross
A review of Race: The Reality of Human Differences, by Vincent Sarich & Frank Miele.

The political person
by Paul Hollander
A review of Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left, by Susan Braudy.

Guilty as charged
by Robert Messenger
A review of Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914? by David Fromkin.