I’ve always had an abiding interest in religion, and in Buddhism specifically, thanks to early exposure from a family friend who told me about her conversion. We’d sit at the kitchen table playing gin rummy and she would try to tell me about her experience. She said it was like her head was splitting open and the universe was pouring in. I often wondered what it felt like and whether I’d ever have that sort of experience. I wondered whether I wanted it, or whether I was afraid of the loss of control such ecstasy might feel like.
Read MoreSo you’re going to have a reading! Congratulations! Readings can be very fun and are an excellent opportunity for you to share your work with the world. But for many the idea of standing in front of a crowd and speaking is a daunting task. If you are one of those people, have no fear! Here are some tips for the nervous writer.
Read MoreWith a rich history that extends back into oral tradition, it’s no surprise that rap and hip-hop music is rife with exquisite storytellers. Hip-hop giants like Slick Rick, the Notorious B.I.G. and Nas are counted among the best for their storytelling abilities as much as their rhythmic flows and vocabularies. But what exactly makes a “good” story? And are the stories told in rap on the same level as what we commonly know as “literature?” Certainly nobody is comparing Soulja Boy to Shakespeare, but here, I will analyze three different rap songs in terms of traditional narrative elements: characterization, plot, setting, style, and themes. I will attempt to pin down how each of these elements is used to make the songs intriguing, unique, and effective as literary works.
Read MoreHaving translated part of Amarsana Ulzytuev’s “anaphora manifesto” for my introduction in the print issue of the magazine, I have already addressed his point about the dominance of end-rhyme so characteristic of Russian verse having been a detriment to the development of anaphora. I would only add that anaphora, being so primal to English verse – in the syntactic sense due to the influence of the King James Bible, and in the broader sense, of alliteration (or “front-rhyme” as Amarsana has it,) characteristic of its earliest strata of Old English alliterative verse – in my process of translating Amarsana’s poems, I did not sense a need to consciously find words that alliterate (after all, an accident of composition) so that the “Englishing” proceeded, as I’m sure did the writing of the originals, in a natural way.
Read MoreToday is the last day to receive your FREE back issue with asubscription or resubscription to HFR. One-year subscribers will receive a random back issue, while a two year subscription will sweeten the deal: TWO free back issues, selected at random. Hurry and place your orders. Time is running out! Subscribe before the clock strikes midnight!
Read MoreLet us share the love! Don’t forget to subscribe or resubscribe this weekend only to get your FREE back issue of HFR! This offer will end Sunday, February 15th, so time is running out to find the perfect blind date! Don’t let it be too late for love!
Read MoreThis month, the brilliant Joseph Scapellato shares an anecdote and a story.
HFR: What's the story behind the story?
JS: I grew up in Western Springs, Illinois, a due-west-of-Chicago Chicago suburb. As a kid I played in Spring Rock Park. In Spring Rock Park there is no spring.
Read MoreThis Valentine’s Day weekend, receive a FREE back issue of Hayden’s Ferry Review if you subscribe or resubscribe. That’s right—Friday through Sunday only, get in the holiday spirit and we’ll send you one of the 54 previous issues of HFR, selected entirely at random. Find out who and what we loved as far back as 1986! We know it’s sudden, that it might be moving too fast to take an issue home when you’ve only just met, but who knows? You might just fall in love.
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