More on: society

WHEN I WAS TWENTY years old I spent an afternoon with Howard Nemerov. He was the first “famous” poet I had ever met, though I would later learn that he was deeply embittered by what he perceived to be a lack of respect from critics and other poets. (I once heard Thom Gunn call him…

ART MAY BE CONCERNED with the creative manipulation of images, but words are always part of the picture. When we encounter a work of art, a load of labels and captions, categories and explanations always works to help or hinder our better understanding. Some are printed on the wall beside the work; others we carry inside…