Djelloul Marbrook
Djelloul (jeh-lool) Marbrook, born in Algiers to a Bedouin father and an American painter grew up New York, served in the US Navy. His book of poems, Far From Algiers, won the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize from Kent State University. His story, Artists Hill, won the Literal Latte first prize in fiction. He worked as a reporter for The Providence Journal and as an editor for The Elmira (NY) Star-Gazette, The Baltimore Sun, The Winston-Salem Journal & Sentinel and The Washington Star. Later he worked as executive editor of four small dailies in northeast Ohio and two medium-size dailies in northern New Jersey.
Poet-Photographer Conjures a Ghostly New York Rail Line of The Past
A poet-photographer, he frames and shoots these rotting ties, trestles, and rusting bridges with the patience and love of a poet listening to his muse, capturing the haunted quality of this New York river valley.
Insistence on Self-Righteous Ideology Creates Insiders and Outsiders
Djelloul Marbrook says the best thing we can do for yourselves and our society is to admit how much we don't know-and then proceed to explore the unknown in our personal journeys as well as our national journey.
Shameless is The Alpha Wolf of Television Wolf Shows
The estimable 'Homeland' notwithstanding, 'Shameless' is the best show on television today. It has no stars because the pack is the star.
A Wiser, More Beautiful Death:Miklos Radnoti’s Sad Farewell to a Murderous...
The Hungarian poet Miklos Radnoti was murdered by Nazi collaborators. His body was later found in a mass grave with 10 final poems in his raincoat.
Six Long Poems of Grandeur and Oceanic Sweep
American poetry tends to commemorate the ordinary, striving to use plain language and to avoid references to things readers may not know. Gjertrud Schnackenberg's 'Heavenly Questions' breaks out of this mold with breathtaking grandeur and breadth
Algerians Clamor for The Paintings a Young American Made There in...
The paintings arrived in Algeria in 2004 and seemingly vanished in the bowels of the country's energy company, which acquired them. But now the Algerian press has clamored for an accounting and a petition is circulating in Bou Saada, 'City of Happ
Corporate Stooges in Congress Undermine and Defeat Democracy
The spectacle of the opposition party's refusal to approve the President's nominations is all the proof we need. Instead of a government that works we have 24/7 politics, like cable news, with around-the-clock trivia, lunacy and fear-mongering.
George The Incurious as Hero of An Intellectually Arthritic Nation
In some ways George W. Bush as president was emblematic of an incurious nation that gathers around a bunch of received ideas and clings to them instead of challenging them
A Modest Book Fair Reveals America’s Half-Seen Literary Renaissance
A stroll down the main street of Hudson, New York, prompts prize-winning poet Djelloul Marbrook to meditate on our culture's values. Here in the midst of this famous antique venue a book fair was also underway.
Is Hemingway’s ‘The Killers’ Prose Poetry? Or ‘The Red Badge of...
When another author, Dan Baum, called Djelloul Marbrook's novel, 'Saraceno,' a prose poem, Marbrook began meditating on the nature of prose and poetry and arrived at some provocative conclusions, expressed here.
National Poetry Month is a Good Time to Ask Questions
National Poetry Month offers a moment to ask ourselves whether we're also celebrating dangerous, subversive, ball-breaking poetry. Or are we just celebrating safe, anecdotal, 'accessible' poetry?
‘Artemisia’s Wolf’: Novel About a Young Woman Who Rocks Her World
When lightning strikes Artemisia Cavelli it illuminates her world and its inhabitants in strange new ways. Prize-winning poet Djelloul Marbrook has written a novel in honor of some of the world's most memorable women-Artemisia Gentileschi
Pascale Petit Channels Frida Kahlo in Poems
Frida Kahlo painted with a unique brush. Now British poet Pascale Petit gives the great Mexican painter a unique voice in 52 poems that eerily resonate with Kahlo's vivid way of painting.
Sometimes Facebook is Like a Party: Too Loud, Too Big, Too...
(07, April is the birthday of the Internet. On this day in 1969, a Defense Department agency sent out a Request for Comments to scientists -RFCs as they are known-asking for ideas and methods that would eventually lead to the Internet.)
Violent TV Images Won’t Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
Films and particularly the 8-11 prime-time television shows batter us with violent images that rile us up, trading on a horrid fascination with violence that for some of us is like the Stockholm Syndrome...
Ever Wonder Why The Jesse James Story is Always Modern?
Why is the Jesse James legend so enduring? Could it be because it speaks indelibly to our sense of being swindled? The press is part of this sense of being swindled because it hides the most important stories in plain sight.
An Abandoned Luncheonette Inspires a Sequence of Sonnets
Poetry isn't about recognition and the praise of readers, it's about saying one thing so essential that the world can no longer be imagined in its absence.Here are two poets whose work illustrates the point: Environmental scientist Paul Clemente a
You Won’t Forget ‘Nazareth, North Dakota,’ Any Time Soon
'Nazareth, North Dakota,' is a memorable story about unforgettable characters, from Roxy in a hopeless marriage to Dill, just out of prison and about to go in again, to the baby boy Sam a teenage beauty pageant winner leaves at Roxy's motel door.
Bees are Dying, Famine is Looming, But The Press is Obsessed...
The worldwide collapse of honey bee colonies threatens famine and yet the press pays it scant attention, treating it as an exotic feature story.
I Read Back to Front and Bottom Up, Says Prize-Winning Poet...
'I just don't trust the authorized version of anything,' he says, and reading the wrong way strips out whatever sanctimony there is in a piece of writing.