Essays

Essays

Lessons of the Line

Charles Simic and me
Dana Levin
Essays

Ucky Art

Judith Scott, Eva Hesse, and the visceral power of "texxture"
Lauren Elkin
Essays

Unfathomable Life

As a philosopher, I thought I understood risk. Then I tried to get pregnant.
Anna Hartford
Essays

Spiritualism’s Shadows

On COVID-19 and false consolation
Alicia Puglionesi
Essays

Heat Maps

Desire in the dark
Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
Objects of Desire

Jars with Well-Fitting Lids

Seeing loss more clearly
Catherine Lacey

Browse

Essays

From The Archives

My Old Printer

Anne Fadiman
March 12, 2011
Essays

The Republic of Letters

Edith Wharton at the Start of Her Career
Hermione Lee
April 1, 2007
Graphic with loaves of bread and water bottles on a black and orange background. Illustration by Laura Padilla Castellanos
Essays

Loaf or Hot-Water Bottle

Closely Translating Proust
Lydia Davis
April 1, 2004
From the Archives

Secret Maps

Holly Wright's Photographs of Hands
Charles Simic
October 1, 1996
Black and white photo of light coming through windows in the apse of San Vitale in Ravenna with mosaics. Courtesy N.P. Sullo.
Essays

Days of 1952

On the rapture of experiencing art in solitude
James Merrill
April 1, 1992
From the Archives

From My Cornell Notebooks

Charles Simic
April 1, 1992
A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
From the Archives

Short Talks

Anne Carson
July 1, 1991
From the Archives

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

James Merrill
December 1, 1989
From the Archives

The First Eighteen Lines of The Waste Land

Anthony Hecht
December 1, 1989
A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
From the Archives

A Legend in My Life

My encounters with the incomparable Greta Garbo
Vincent Price
July 1, 1988