Mike Schneider: Drugs, Murder, Nazi Porn & German Music
Historical awareness is part of being a responsible human being. Yes. Still, there are some things you know you know and yet don’t really want to talk about with friends — or, often, that you mostly think they don’t really want to hear about from you, at least not as much as it’s on your mind.
Mike Schneider: A Hammer not a Mirror
A Discussion with Anne Feeney & Utah Phillips
Mike Schneider: Against Walls | John le Carré (1931-2020)
Among reasons we’ll remember le Carré, not least is his 1963 breakthrough novel, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. Set in Cold War Berlin, it’s a classic story of love and espionage centered on the Berlin Wall, both as physical reality and symbol of separation between people — a wall that resonates with 21st-century politics.
Mike Schneider: Photograph in TIME, 1985
A man in battle camouflage holds a machete
at the throat of a peasant farmer on his knees
genuflecting in a shallow grave he just dug.
Mike Schneider: Bob Dylan’s Ballads of Murder, Drowning & Other Songs of Love
If one of the defining tendencies of post-modernism is breaking down borders between high and low culture—such as between Beethoven and Elvis, Dylan is a supreme post-modernist. The cultural compass inscribed by his work is huge, flattering us by the depth of his learning and song awareness. We can follow or not—the songs don’t care.
Mike Schneider: Rain-Father of Narcissism & the Inner Tyrant
Remembering Tony Hoagland (1953-2018)
Mike Schneider: Father Ted & Voting Rights
Republicans have closed polling places, reduced early voting, purged voter rolls, and added ID requirements. Nearly all these changes are in predominantly African-American districts.
Mike Schneider: Appreciating Tony Hoagland (1953-2018) — Notes on “America”
From Tony Hoagland’s third book, What Narcissism Means to Me, his poem “America” flaps the self-loving flag of his marvelously ironical title. As Tony explained in a 2003 interview with Miriam Sagan, … Continue reading
Mike Schneider: Notes from the Palm Beach Poetry Festival
Blackface is in the news and — should anyone be interested in the details — instructions on “How to Black Up,” complete with recipe for burnt-cork face-paint can be found in Olio, Tyehimba Jess’ book that won the 2017 Pultizer Prize for poetry.
Mike Schneider: The Wages of Fracking
Amity and Prosperity, One Family and the Fracturing of America, by Eliza Griswold (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, 2018). An accomplished, award-winning poet, Eliza Griswold also writes for The New … Continue reading
Mike Schneider: Faith, Poetry, and James Baldwin
Prague Writer’s Festival, 2017 1. America on the Hot Seat A large pleasure it was this November (10th through 16th) to visit Prague (with my friend Jan) as tourists, Americans … Continue reading
Mike Schneider: In the Post-Truth World
the game of truth or consequences has no consequence. What does it matter if insurance agents quote Thoreau? The mass of men still lead lives of quiet desperation. Guns are … Continue reading
Mike Schneider: Salem Hill Hymn Sing
“The Angel of Death is abroad in the land, only you can’t always hear the flutter of its wings.” — Winston Churchill, 1944 A screaming comes across the sky like … Continue reading
Vox Populi 