A review of Maxine Chernoff's 'Without'
The cover photograph of Maxine Chernoff’s latest book of poems, Without, shows a scruffy western American landscape in the hallucinatory amber light of late afternoon. The black shadow of a porch cuts a geometric shape across the landscape, framing leafless trees and twisted stumps; in the distance lies a low hill covered in chaparral-like vegetation. The photograph, by Carolyn Guinzio, suggests a dry land lacking the moisture needed to sustain growth: it is a landscape without.
The last page of Ulysses
Photo of Marilyn Monroe by Eve Arnold, 1955
Photographer Eve Arnold had a long and productive life: she died in London in January 2012, aged 99. I was honored to meet her a few years before she passed on. She took hundreds of photos of Marilyn Monroe, and is responsible for a remarkable 1955 color photo of Marilyn Monroe reading the last chapter of «Ulysses» by James Joyce in a Long Island playground. There is a gentle irony in MM’s choice of the last chapter.
In «Joyce and Popular Culture», R.B. Kershner quotes a letter from Arnold about the day she took the shot: