Friday, March 6, 2015

Arthur Miller (1915-2005)




Arthur Miller (1915-2005) is one of the most recognized playwrights in the world. However, he became famous not only because of his literary genius. In 1956, he married his second wife – Marilyn Monroe. From then on, Miller was in the limelight. 
His life was marked by one more event. Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy decided to take advantage of the nation’s fear of communism. In 1950, he declared that he had a list of 205 people in the State Department who belonged to the American Communist Party. Panic spread. During that era, innocent people from different walks of life were accused of supporting/being communists without sound evidence. As a result, many lives, careers and friendships were destroyed. What is more, the House Committee on Un-American Activities decided to crack down on the Hollywood film industry. Actors, producers, writers were summoned to appear before the committee and reveal names of their colleagues who might have been communists. Those who cooperated with the HUAC could continue their activities. Those who refused were cited for contempt while their names appeared on the Hollywood black list. Arthur Miller was summoned before the HUAC because one of friends mentioned his name during the investigation. The playwright refused to cooperate with the committee and was charged with contempt of the Congress. Miller’s conviction was, fortunately, overturned on appeal.
Was Miller a communists? The answer is: NO. During the 1930s, the playwright and other artists attended a small discussion group that discussed regularly the philosophy of communism. However, they quite quickly reached the conclusion that this system of government is a failure and abandoned their meetings.
Here is a short list of Miller’s best known woks:

  • All my Sons (1947)
  • Death of a Salesman (1949) – Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony Award for Best Play, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award 
  • The Crucible (1953)
  • A View from the Bridge (1955)
  • The Misfits (1961) – screenplay
  • Broken Glass (1993) – the Olivier Award for Best Play 
  • The Crucible (1996) – screenplay

by Marta Makoś

Walking to Martha's Vineyard – February 23th 2015



Last month, Book Lovers Among Students met to discuss Franz Wright’s celebrated book of poems Walking to Martha’s Vineyard (2003). Hauntingly beautiful, minimalistic, but also brutally honest and seasoned with a great deal of sense of humor, these poems explore the themes of depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, as well as recovery, Catholic faith, human mortality, spirituality and gratitude. Wright claimed in one of his interviews that a lot of poems published in Walking to Martha’s Vineyard were “written either walking to, during, or walking home from mass. I would get home and just type them out, and often I wouldn't revise them.” While the second part of that statement was generally received with some deal of skepticism (considering the formal mastery demonstrated by the author in these poems), the remark about the importance of Catholic faith inspired us to discuss the status of religious poetry in Academia and beyond. Although religious poetry might be regarded as “a song of the past”, at least by the contemporary reader influenced by modernism, post-modernism and avant-garde writings in general, there exists a powerful trend in American poetry, which dates back to Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and confessional poetry, that embraces spirituality as its main theme. Wright is both a continuator of that tradition and a reformer in the field, stating that honesty of the experience (of both writing and reading) is his key objective. In an interview with Lawrence F. Laban (Poetry Center, The University of Arizona), Wright argues that “[a]nyone can write obscure poetry filled with mysterious but ultimately shallow and pointless non sequitur-like gibberish. Language like this is extremely dangerous (...) (It is also, incidentally, the best way to conceal a lack of talent for writing, or a lack of experience, of anything important to say.) (...) Great poetry that can be read by any person with a 6th grade reading ability, writing that is not infected with the weird malaise of irony, that is writing of primal sincerity and devotion to the experiences of real human beings in all times and places, has a chance of surviving.” The cynical reader will discredit Wright’s power; the honest reader will embrace him in all his beauty.

by Małgorzata Olsza

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Franz Wright (1953 - )




Franz Wright, the son of James Wright, is a Pulitzer-Prize winning American poet and translator exploring the themes of religion, spirituality, redemption, illness and  renewal. He was born in Vienna on March 18, 1953. During his youth, his family moved to the Northwest United States, the Midwest, and northern California. Wright’s deeply spiritual, meditative and minimalistic poetry spans forty years of his personal development as a poet and as a person. His collection of poetry include:

  • F (2013)
  • Kindertotenwald (2011)
  • God’s Silence (2006)
  • Walking to Martha's Vineyard (2003)
  • The Beforelife (2001)
  • Midnight Postscript (1993)
  • Tapping the White Cane of Solitude (1976)

The poet has been the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Fellowship, and the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, among other honors. He lives in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Selected sources
The Huffington Post
The New Yorker


by Małgorzata Olsza
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