– When I decided to attend the 2014 Boston Book Fair in November, I imagined the trip would be something of a capstone experience. I figured it would pull together the things I’d learned from my visits to the John Bale Book Co. and Johnnycake Books. I didn’t expect to be stunned upon entrance. I was stuck staring at the rows of shining display cases while PY’s editor, Melissa Gordon, […]
by Katie Schnuck – Within the quaint town of Staffordshire, in the middle of England, lies a tradition that has nothing to do with eclectic music, fancy dress, or accents that slip off the tongue. The tradition has to do with a piece of food served at mealtime when people gather. George Smith, a filmmaker and recent graduate of Staffordshire University, takes on the local delicacy in his short film, The […]
George Smith’s documentary whets the palate with a savory pancake and a Staffordshire tradition.
– PY: What inspired you to submit to Poor Yorick? CS: A number of things attracted me to Poor Yorick: its mission “to remind us of pasts we cannot afford to forget;” that it is a joint effort between WCSU’s MFA program and history department; and that it has museum partners. Since my poem “Markd Y” is so infused with, infected by, the archive, finding a home for a section […]
A Q&A by Leslie Lindenauer – For a little over two years now, Catherine Sasanov has been searching through archives in Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, trying to find traces of an unnamed woman, enslaved and branded Y. In 1719, the woman had been sent by ship from Barbados to Kittery, Maine, where she was to be sold on consignment by merchant, William Pepperrell. She died approximately three weeks after […]
Imagine exploring a letter diary that passed between Max Planck and three of his college friends? Brandon Brown gives us a glimpse of the man behind the quantum theorist.
from Mark d Y (Archives & Invocations)
An unnamed woman, enslaved and branded Y, traveled by ship, was sold by a merchant, and died a few weeks later. Catherine Sasanov’s poem brings to light her memory.
– Imagine a life filled with drugs, alcohol, petty crimes, casual sex, and little fear of consequences. It would be a life akin to that lived by the narrator (sometimes named Fuckhead) of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son (1992). That lifestyle has drawbacks, among them a memory like a bingo blower, popping balls of experience for others to arrange into something coherent. Bingo! Johnson uses his narrator’s disjointed memory to share […]