Author Archives: hgsa1

On a Friday morning in September, I sit in front of Degas’ The Rehearsal, taking in the pinks and blues of the ballerinas’ shoes and ribbons, observing the brushstrokes that pull light from the windows into the studio, and imagining a backstory for the violinist playing in front of the dancers. The quiet of theContinue reading “What I Learned from Looking Closely”

This second issue of Veritas Review builds on the strength and variety of the first and inaugural issue. As with the previous issue, this one highlights the work of students and others at Harvard and in Cambridge and beyond. Encouraging student work and creativity in verbal and visual arts is at the heart of whatContinue reading “An Editorial Introduction”

Marilyn Chin is an award-winning poet and author. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Portland, Oregon, she writes Asian American classics that are taught in classrooms internationally. Marilyn Chin’s books of poems include A Portrait of the Self as Nation, Hard Love Province, Rhapsody in Plain Yellow, Dwarf Bamboo, and The Phoenix Gone, TheContinue reading “Poems, Marilyn Chin”

Tom Conley is the Abbot Lawrence Lowell Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies and of Romance Languages and Literatures in the Romance Languages and Literatures Department at Harvard. He studies relations of space and writing in literature, cartography, and cinema. His work moves to and from early modern France and issues in theory and interpretationContinue reading “Advisors”

* A creepy ghoul moth a good-for-nothing-cat rubs against my leggings * Half a life is not an unfinished life she murmurs * Migrant sparrow on bamboo scaffolding coughs * I sit and sit until my ass is rotten (can’t sanitize my mind) * She’s addicted to “Dae Jang Geum” I’ve succumbed to “Moonlight Resonance”Continue reading “Beijing Haiku”

Here are comments on two excerpts (both cited) from the Tarikh Baghdad aw Madinat as-Salam, a history of Baghdad written in the eleventh century by the Arab intellectual al-Khatib al-Baghdadi; this is an original translation from the Arabic. “Histories” of that age often included a variety of genres such as poetry, philosophy, and hadiths. OriginalContinue reading “Extracts from ‘Tarikh Baghdad’, Henry Stratakis-Allen”

‘The literary vision these poets and writers express with words inspires how I envision them and render a portrait with pencil or pen.’ Catherine Ezell

Shuri Kido, known as the “far north poet,” has published many books of poetry and essays and is considered one of the most influential contemporary poets in Japan. He has introduced translations of works by Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot to Japan. His work is infused with a profound knowledge of Japanese culture. TheContinue reading “Translators of Kido: Tomoyuki Endo and Forrest Gander”

Editors Cindy Chopoidalo is the Assistant Editor of the Canadian Review of Comparative Literature and a member of Editors Canada. Her publications include Shakespeare’s First Tetralogy, Epic Poetry, and Historiography: How a Dramatist Creates a Fictional World (2014) and Shakespeare’s Possible Worlds (2018), and she also contributed to The Definitive Shakespeare Companion: Overviews, Documents, andContinue reading “Biographies”

Should we be basically optimistic or pessimistic? Does duty remain important in the modern world? From where is meaning derived? The late Count Lev Tolstoy’s newly published “Alyosha the Pot” poses these necessary questions and lends itself to answering them. His eponymous protagonist is clearly a simple man both in appearance and intellect, motivated primarilyContinue reading “Reflection on Tolstoy”