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Christopher Ricks

Paparazzi

Thumbnail image for Paparazzi March 20, 2010

“When we define the Photograph as a motionless image, this does not mean only that the figures it represents do not move; it means that they do not emerge, do not leave: they are anesthetized and fastened down, like butterflies.”

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Seventeen Years Ago Last March: Elizabeth Bishop’s Grand Finale

Thumbnail image for Seventeen Years Ago Last March: Elizabeth Bishop’s Grand Finale March 6, 2010

‘Crusoe in England’ was first published in The New Yorker in 1971, then later collected in ‘Geography III,’ perhaps Bishop’s finest single volume of poems. (Only recently I discovered the title of which was suggested to her by John Ashbery. He had found a little geography textbook of the eponymous name, and sent it to her, thinking she’d rather enjoy it. Turns out, she did.)

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Some Books on My Mind, or {Potential} Purchases of Imperishables

Thumbnail image for Some Books on My Mind, or {Potential} Purchases of Imperishables February 21, 2010

Hands up, anyone who has read the whole of Herodotus and the whole of Thucydides! And Saint-Simon? And Cardinal de Retz? But even the great nineteenth-century cycles of novels are more often talked about than read.

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