Essays

The image of a nineteenth-century military man, Sherman, bearded and with a haunted stare, evokes patriotism’s fearful complexities.

Nigeria should be a massively rich country. It’s the most populous nation in Africa and the world’s sixth leading oil producer. Over a quarter trillion dollars in oil has been lifted from Nigerian soils and waters in the last four decades...

The problems with people have provided poets with their subjects for millennia. In our own investigations of three primary lyric modes, we have previously considered the love poem (and the problems of passion, heartbreak, betrayal), the...

While different notions of the relation of art and life inspire contemporary memoirs and poetry, Shapiro’s poetry uneasily investigates this division.