The Monthly Digest: October 2020

In September LARB continued it commitment to reviewing, profiling, and interviewing a wide range of poets. Some of the authors below, like Claudia Rankine, are writing directly in response to the crises facing the US and the world; others, like Evgeny Boratynsky, are long gone and come to us by way of translation. Here you will find a profile of the great Mexican poet and activist Homero Aridjis, interviews with Spoon Jackson, who is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, and Abiodun Oyewole, one of the founding members of The Last Poets, and reviews of the elegantly formal verse of A. M. Juster and Henry Sloss, as well as the “long, spooling lines” of Mei-mei Berssenbrugge. The credit for our varied, versatile poetry section belongs to its brilliant editor, the poet Callie Siskel. — LARB Editorial