Jan Herman

The author won't need a headstone . . . This monumental omnibus will do . . . Five hundred and eight-six gorgeous pages of verbal pleasure . . . Intimate collaborations with esteemed artists . . . Landscapes of descriptive simplicity . . . Pure thought objectified . . .

David Hockney’s departure has drawn obituaries from across the art world and the popular press, which is testimony to his eminence whether his paintings and drawings are considered a simple pleasure to look at or regressive to contemplate. Whatever it comes down to, he loved to experiment.

If poetry make nothing happen, as W.H. Auden once wrote, it sometimes uncannily anticipates what will.

Sometimes he rewrote them. See an example and decide which you prefer: the early or the later version.

Colin Asher, author of the critically acclaimed biography of Nelson Algren "Never a Lovely So Real," now focuses on five emblematic figures — Huddle Ledbetter, Elmo Hope, Johnny Cash, Ike White, and Tupac Shakur — as he explores the influence of incarceration on blues artists, jazz musicians, country singers, rock'n'rollers,