2019 Literature Publications and Grants
Amos, Holly, Aria Aber, Dan Beachy-Quick, A.K. Blakemore, Henri Cole, et al. “Reading List: September 2019.” Poetry Magazine Editor’s Blog. September 17, 2019,
poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2019/09/reading-list-september-2019
Cole, Henri. “To a Bat.” Poem. Ambit Magazine, issue 238, 2019, pp. 90.
Cole, Henri. “Comfort, Mercy, and Strength.” HERE: Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Maya Lin, 21 Sep. 2019-29 Dec. 2019, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio.
Abstract: An essay on the American artist Jenny Holzer for “HERE” (An exhibition of artworks by Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer & Maya Lin). Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio.
Cole, Henri. “Departure.” Poem. Times Literary Supplement. April 19, 2019, no. 6055,
the-tls.co.uk/articles/departure/
Cole, Henri. “Elfie Semotan in Marfa, Texas.” Contradiction, edited by Esther Ruelfs and Stefano Tonchi. Hatje Cantz, 2019.
Abstract: Essay on the Austrian photographer Elfie Semotan for "Contradiction" (A retrospective of the artist's photographs).
Cole, Henri. “On Friendship.” Poem. The New Yorker, September 23, 2019,
Cole, Henri. “Ginger and Sorrow.” Poem. Salmagundi, issue 204/205, 2019, pp. 118.
Cole, Henri. “Haiku.” Poem. Poetry Magazine, vol. 214, no. 5, 2019.
Cole, Henri. “Lingonberry Jam.” Poem. Salmagundi, issue 204/205, 2019, pp. 119.
Cole, Henri. “Man and Kitten.” Poem. Salmagundi, issue 204/205, 2019, pp. 117.
Cole, Henri. “Migrants Devouring the Flesh of a Dead Horse.” Poem. Salmagundi, issue 204/205, 2019, pp. 115-116.
Cole, Henri. باريس الأورفيّة: السّياحة الأدبية في باريس [Orphic Paris], translated by Amani Lazar. Rewayat Books, 2019.
Abstract: Arabic translation by Amani Lazar of Prof. Cole’s book Orphic Paris, a book-length work combining autobiography, diary, essay, and photography.
Cole, Henri. “Paris is My Seroquel.” Poem. Poems of Paris, edited by Emily Fragos. Everyman’s Library, 2019, pp. 33.
Cole, Henri. “Pheasant.” Poem. I Know Now in Wonder: 25 Poems from the First 25 Years of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation. Civitella Ranieri Foundation, 2019.
Cole, Henri. “Super Bloom.” Poem. The Believer, issue 126, vol. 16, no. 4, 2019.
Cole, Henri. “Susan Unterberg, Recipient of the Governor’s Award for Service to the Arts.” Skowhegan Awards Dinner. New York, New York. April 23, 2019.
Abstract: An essay on the artist and philanthropist for Skowhegan's annual awards ceremonial.
External Grant: Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard Summer 2019 Fellowship.
Farrell, John. “Literature Versus Utopia: An Ancient Quarrel.” Los Angeles Review of Books, June 30, 2019,
lareviewofbooks.org/article/literature-versus-utopia-an-ancient-quarrel/
Farrell, John. “Why Literature Professors Turned Against Authors—Or Did They?” Los Angeles Review of Books, January 13, 2019,
lareviewofbooks.org/article/why-literature-professors-turned-against-authors-or-did-they/
Morrison, James. “James Franco and the Queer Art of Failure.” Celebrity Studies, vol. 10, issue 4, 2019, pp. 574-582.
Abstract: For 20 years, James Franco has carved out a celebrity reputation distinguished by its mercurial character. Does he aspire to full-fledged stardom or some new variant of character-actor status? Is he a mainstream figure or a cult fixture, a cultural aspirant or a connoisseur and purveyor of sleaze aesthetics, a bro-ish guy’s guy, a la his dude-in-waiting Seth Rogen, or a queer icon in the making? Evidence for any or all of these alternatives circulates indiscriminately through his hectic, over-stuffed résumé. Throughout Franco’s wildly prolific career – 17 credits in 2017 alone, with another 10 already announced for 2018 – he has also flirted with queerness. Though identifying as essentially straight, he said in a widely circulated interview, ‘I’m gay in my work.’ This essay examines the distinctive aesthetic that Franco’s career articulates. I argue that Franco’s work, in refusing stable definition and challenging traditional notions of artistic quality, expresses a fascination with failure that takes on explicitly queer ramifications in its principle of over-production, subverting ordinary norms of success and linking a kind of artistic promiscuity to his own performances of masculinity.
Rentz, Ellen K. “’Holsum to Haue in Memory’: An Added Tale in an English Book of Hours.” The Chaucer Review, vol. 54, no. 2, 2019, pp. 191-215.
Abstract: San Marino, Huntington Library MS HM 64538, an English book of hours (ca. 1425-50), contains a versified Middle English exemplum (laid out as prose) about the efficacy of praying for the dead in Purgatory. This unusual addition to a largely Latin manuscript originated in the thirteenth-century Golden Legend before circulating in Middle English in John Mirk’s late-fourteenth-century Festial. A nearly identical version (laid out in verse) appears as part of a series of religious lyrics in London, British Library MS Harley 2251, a poetic anthology closely associated with Lydgate. As an addition to HM 64538, the story reshapes the book as commemorative, and its complex textual biography challenges us to reconsider books of hours as texts that enrich collective worship and as archives of vernacular literary practice and production.
Smith, Derik. “Centering the ‘Pupil of the Eye’: Blackness, Modernity, and the Revelation of Bahá’u’alláh.” The Journal of Baha’i Studies, vol. 29, issue 1-2, 2019, pp. 7-28.
Abstract: In the late nineteenth century, Bahá’u’lláh likened people of African descent to the “pupil of the eye” through which the “light of the spirit shineth forth.” This essay argues that the “pupil of the eye” metaphor is a deeply consequential, distinguishing feature of the transformative social and spiritual system laid out in Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation. Studying the nexus of capitalism, race, and intellectual history, the essay historicizes Bahá’u’lláh’s elevating metaphor, arguing that it amounts to a forceful refutation of anti-blackness and thus a dismantling of one of modernity’s pivotal ideologies. Ultimately, the essay demonstrates that the unique integrity and coherence of Bahá’u’lláh’s system for the creation of universal unity and justice is especially manifest through analytical contemplation of the “pupil of the eye” metaphor.