Marcel Proust

On gossamer wings

A review of 'A Field Guide to Lost Things'

Are they of the past, by the past, and for the past? This might be a way of evaluating the later-than-life productions of Marcel Proust. Thus there may be something to say for Peter Jaeger’s A Field Guide to Lost Things even though it is not one of Proust’s best.

Bright arrogance, gallery C

Speed, Erotics, Emergence

Joe Milutis

Insect writing from Brian Conley's Decipherment of Linear X, Courtesy the artist

While I feel hard-pressed to finish what I had planned for this column within the time allotted, time is on my side—or lack thereof. One area that remains unexplored is the ways in which theories of artificial intelligence impact translation, especially given the huge impact of machine translation technologies. Forgoing the sense of translation, no longer routed through consciousness, one can embrace an inhuman speed which, while riddled with non-sense may evolve unforeseen sensibilities and new forms of intelligence—while still attending to the situatedness of the agen

A conversation with Aaron Kunin

The poet's novel

Laynie Browne

Laynie Browne: Recently a show at the Morgan Library in New York City celebrated the 1913 publication of the first of the seven volumes of Swan’s Way. Here one could see some of Proust’s original handwritten manuscripts and notebooks, some of which have never left Paris. In one notebook, considering his book in progress he writes: “Should it be a novel, a philosophical essay, am I a novelist?”

In your novel The Mandarin, the question is potently raised in various ways, who is a novelist? What is a novel? I wonder if you could comment on this.

Recently in Jacket2

From the Jacket2 team

Publishing during the COVID-19 crisis

Jacket2

Like many of you, we are adapting to increased safety measures around COVID-19 at the University of Pennsylvania and other campuses. Our work here at Jacket2 will likely be delayed and/or interrupted; our publication schedule for both commentaries and J2 content at large will be slower than usual as we adapt to the global pandemic. Many of our editors are working remotely, and we will continue to curate Jacket2 as a space to convene and sustain a life in/through poetry during times of scarcity, stress, and shifting imagined communities. We remain committed to bringing you open access content when institutional access and travel for research become compromised and complicated.

A note from the editors and publishers of Jacket2:

You say you wanna poli-po-asis: poetry and politics

by Edwin Torres

Michael Ruby and Sam Truitt, curators

Yes, the word politics leaves me colorless and blech in the playground — so, I’m grateful to Sam Truitt and Michael Ruby for the invitation to play with something that I don’t understand.

Metaphor and social media in the 2020 election

by James Sherry

Michael Ruby and Sam Truitt, curators

Personal, political, and climate conditions change continuously, as does poetry, its syntaxes, and uses of metaphor. Within certain ranges, readers simply accommodate change.