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The Flight of the English Major

A recent NYT opinion piece gave some pretty surprising statistics on English majors: "In 1991, 165 students graduated from Yale with a B.A. in English literature. By 2012, that number was 62. In 1991, the top two majors at Yale were history and English. In 2013, they were economics and political science. At Pomona this… Continue reading The Flight of the English Major

Judging books by their covers

As I've described, my office occasionally receives galleys of forthcoming books, usually fiction directed toward women (although last month we got something that looks like a mash-up of World War Z and Sex in the City). Sometimes they come addressed to the marketing department, sometimes to me or to the marketing assistant. Usually, publicists send galleys… Continue reading Judging books by their covers

NaPoWriMo Week Four Point Five: Sarcastic Sonnets

This is a short week at the end of a challenging month, so I decided to treat myself to some sonnets by Edna St. Vincent Millay. As I used to tell my literature students, Millay offers great break-up poetry--she gives a great kissoff, as in "I being born a woman and distressed," but she also conveys the… Continue reading NaPoWriMo Week Four Point Five: Sarcastic Sonnets

NaPoWriMo Week Four: Aleatory Selection

For this sextet of poems, I will not make a pretense of having read one per day. In truth, I felt a little at sea after week three; I wanted to leave more up to chance and to be surprised, but I wasn't sure how to invite random poems in. I asked friends for recs.… Continue reading NaPoWriMo Week Four: Aleatory Selection

NaPoWriMo Week Three: That’s the way it is with me somehow

A busy week that I began in one state and finished in another, playing catchup all the while. I decided to pick up my Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams this week, since reading H.D. put me in the mood for another Imagist-ish poet, and I particularly enjoy the short descriptive verses from WCW's earlier… Continue reading NaPoWriMo Week Three: That’s the way it is with me somehow