In our afternoon reading: a look at Don DeLillo’s novel of football, an interview with Edward Hirsch, thoughts on Wendy C. Ortiz’s memoir, new writing from Ronna Wineberg, and more.
Gabriel: A Poem by Edward Hirsch (Knopf; 78 p.) Elegies, in our age of access to centuries’ worth of poems, can seem outdated, stilted, and perhaps even a bit indulgent. It’s hard to imagine a straightforward popular and populist book lamenting death like John Gunther’s howl of an elegy for his young son, Death Be Not Proud today. I find it hard not to feel an instinctive response of both been-there-seen-that and the attending tic of kindness that tells us […]