Once again a work week draws to a close. Once again we are filled with weekend fever. And once again we look back on the fiction, poetry and literature news that burned in our brains for the past five days. It was a good week and it was a bad week. We published some terrific content. But we also — and here we’re speaking for the world at large — lost two irreplaceable figures. This weekend, when you’re at the height of your revelry, picture Howard Zinn and J.D. Salinger sharing a laugh, kicking up their heels, and patting one another on the back. Hey, even if it isn’t true, it still paints a nice picture. Happy living, all you wicked scriveners. — Kevin Murphy

The NY Times is reporting that enigmatic author and recluse J.D. Salinger has died. He was 91. The news has already stirred disparate feelings among media and other literary hounds. On one hand, we mourn the passing of a legendary American writer. On the other, we inevitably wonder whether his death might shed light on what’s been happening in Cornish, New Hampshire since the 1960′s. Like most everything, only time will tell.

Rest in Peace, Salinger.

A cross-dresser in a dream represents what.
O bronze horses and busts in metamorphosis
O iron balls and mixed media birds
We are daughters we are sons
We are any number of faces in throes in surprise
The composites of Day-Glo points
We are pregnant we are fashionable we are swimming
We are over the awkward crush stage & feeling rejected
We are no bodybuilders
In a double-dream in Hermes’ crosshairs
Night’s jerky water spilled out the hot tub.
Inside, anything can come to be.
A lot of touch going on
Shoulder rubs forehead rubs a lot of probing
A few hoighty-toighty cultists and many more average types
And some intellectuals, you know.
We are nudes akimbo we are in dance class
We are a catholic newspaper and a writ from some pontiff
We are the compulsions of loose matter
We are the brainwashing of rationale and a cozy living space
Before a dark audience
We are in bras and panties we are locals
We are country-punk
We are the reddened parts the hot parts.
We were bent for this.

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Daniel Luévano’s work recently appeared online with Verse, and more poems will appear soon in The Shattered Wig Review and The Saint Ann’s Review. He lives in Fort Collins, CO, with his wife, daughter and son.

What's An English Major To Do?

Every English major must, at some time and as a general rule, teach. Or go to law school. Or toil in marketing, F&B, or real estate. Call us cynical, or call us experienced. We taught at a boarding school in New England, which was a wonderful experience for many reasons. But teaching 11^th graders, especially when we were barely 22 — well, not so much. In keeping with our academic stride, we check out The Atlantic’s report on Teach for America, and deconstruct a new book that examines Derrida’s “philosophy of disillusionment.” Naturally, we approve of literary reviews — those banners of university presses — but Mother Jones wonders if their day has passed. The Apple Tablet’s day has come. But has it already gone? Here’s more technology news: a collection of insulting right-wing PhotoShop images, fresh from Obama’s first year, is now percolating online. Yes, it’s good. And yes, it’s bad. And yes, it’s all on the syllabus. – Andrew Geer

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Howard Zinn died Wednesday. He was 87 and suffered a fatal heart attack. From the Boston Globe:

Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and whose books, such as “A People’s History of the United States,” inspired young and old to rethink the way textbooks present the American experience, died today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling. He was 87.

His daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn of Lexington, said he suffered a heart attack.

“He’s made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture,” Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, said tonight. “He’s changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can’t think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect.”