Books & the Arts

The Politics and the Pity The Politics and the Pity

"We are all German Jews" chanted 50,000 Frenchmen at the gates of the Bastille in 1968; I was recently reminded of this episode, which has become revolutionary lore, when Holocau...

Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

The Bloody Cul-de-Sac The Bloody Cul-de-Sac

On March 16, 1978, Aldo Moro--a key figure of Italy's ruling Christian Democracy--was captured in Rome in broad daylight by the Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse, hence the initials B.R....

Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

Stalin’s Grandchildren Stalin’s Grandchildren

"At the burial of communism too many people want to jump from the coffin into the funeral procession." The Polish author of these lines tried to convey the idea that the former p...

Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

The Apparatchiks The Apparatchiks

What price is Poland paying for its Stalinist heritage?

Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

Fact or Fiction? Fact or Fiction?

Jacques Attali, until June 25 the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development but for years the French President's personal assistant, cannot be too happy w...

Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

Dancing on the Grave of Revolution Dancing on the Grave of Revolution

Long live the Revolution--as long as it is dead and buried with no prospect of resurrection. That thought springs to mind as the French begin to celebrate the bicentennial of ...

Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

The Sound and the Furet The Sound and the Furet

History may not have come to a stop in 1989, but the public is still under the spell of the counterpoint in Francis Fukuyama's famous exercise in propaganda: Capitalism is eterna...

Jan 1, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

Allen Weinstein’s Docudrama Allen Weinstein’s Docudrama

Let's start with the Random House press release, replete with "Praise for Perjury"--a reissue of Allen Weinstein's book on the Hiss-Chambers case.

Oct 16, 1997 / Books & the Arts / Victor Navasky

The Marching Saint The Marching Saint

Staughton Lynd, although he would never admit it, is one of the visible saints of the modern American left.

May 22, 1997 / Books & the Arts / Paul Buhle

Last Night in Havana

Last Night in Havana Last Night in Havana

Editor’s Note: Nation contributor Dan Wakefield alerted us to our role in helping to launch the poetry career of Richard Blanco, selected by the White House as the 2013 inaugural poet. Dan writes:   “When I went to teach at Florida International University in the spring of 1994, I went to a student reading and was especially impressed by one of the poets, a young man named Richard Blanco. I asked if he would give me copies of the poems he read that night, and I picked out three of them I thought were worthy of publication and suggested I submit them to The Nation, where I have been a long-time contributor. Rick said none of his work had been published yet, and was happy for me to send the poems to Grace Shulman, the poetry editor. To my delight and to Rick’s, Shulman selected his poem “Last Night in Havana,” and eventually published it in The Nation (March 31, 1997). So The Nation was the first periodical to accept for publication the work of our new inaugural poet. (To thank me, Rick gave me my first guided tour of Little Havana, Miami’s legendary Cuban neighborhood.)”     The palms sink willingly into the saffron ground. All I can map now is the marble veins of static rivers, the island coastline retreated like a hem from the sargasso patches of Caribbean. I think of you primo hermano, huddled on the edge of an Almendares curb last night your Greco shadow spilled over the street, and over the tracks stapled to the weeds below your bedroom window. Shawled in cobwebs of wind, we slapped at unreachable mosquitos as Havana’s tenements collapsed around us, enclosed us in yellow like the pages of old books or the stucco walls of a hollow chapel. You confessed you live with one foot ankled in the sand of a revolution, one Viking sole on the beach testing an unparted sea for the stag tide, the gulf wind, a legible puzzle of stars, the perfect moon that will increase your chances through the straits to my door, blistered, salted, but alive, to cry—Llegué hermano, llegué! And silence the sweep of labor trains in your window, the creak of your father’s wheelchair in the hall searching for a bottle of pills he will find empty, the slam of your eyelids forcing sleep. The bus tires are ready, bound with piano wire, and the sail will be complete with a few more scraps of linen Tia Delia will stitch together after midnights when the neighbors are asleep. Last night in Havana, your words bounced from your knees bent against your face and drowned with the lees in an empty bottle of bootleg wine you clutched around the neck and will keep to store fresh water.

Mar 31, 1997 / Books & the Arts / Richard Blanco

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