Unstressed

  • Poetry
  • Culture
  • Design

A weblog from the editors of Linebreak

The regulars

Ash Bowen's poetry has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Blackbird, and Black Warrior Review, among other publications. He lives and works in Texarkana, AR.

Jennifer Jabaily's poetry has appeared in Mannequin Envy and Fickle Muses. She's a second-year MFA student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

Ashley Anna McHugh is a third-year MFA student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Measure, DIAGRAM and Memorious as well as other publications.

Johnathon Williams's poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2009, the Pebble Lake Review, and Unsplendid. He lives in Fayetteville, AR, with his wife and daughters.

Praise for new King novel

Janet Maslin says nice things about Stephen King’s new novel in the New York Times.

In the spirit of “On Writing,” “Under the Dome” takes a lucid, commonsense approach that keeps it tight and energetic from start to finish. Hard as this thing is to hoist, it’s even harder to put down.

Culture, criticism, and gatekeepers

Bookslut’s Jessa Crispin muses on the decline of book reviews, and the problem of defining culture even in an age when traditional culture is on the decline.

But the reason I have a hard time with these conversations about the decline of the review, and the death of authority, is because so many of the contemporary authors I love are often the ones being kept out of the conversation. They’re rarely, if ever, reviewed in the New York Times, they don’t get splashy features written about them and their night out with their friends. It’s hard for me to get worked up about the decline of reviews when I didn’t care much for them to begin with.

Edgar Allan Poe goes shopping

An Amazon customer reviews a gallon of Tuscan Whole Milk in the style of Edgar Allan Poe.

Once upon a mid-day sunny, while I savored Nuts ‘N Honey,
With my Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 gal, 128 fl. oz., I swore
As I went on with my lapping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at the icebox door.
‘Bad condensor, that,’ I muttered, ‘vibrating the icebox door -
Only this, and nothing more.’

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