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Recent Posts
- Basquiat’s drawing “Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta” c. 1983
- On Jorie Graham’s Poem “Then the Fog” (2025)
- post #5, concluding the Preface to my book in progress, _Upcycling Ecopoetry_
- post #4 in the series, from the preface to my book in progress, Upcycling Ecopoetry
- post #3 in the series, from my book in progress Upcycling Ecopoetry
Recent Comments
- ankara bo?anma avukat? on On the Game of Thrones title sequence
- Fireborn on Some Reasons Why Daenerys Targaryen’s Character Is Even Better in Game of Thrones Than in Song of Ice and Fire
- Daniel Bosch on Daniel Bosch on Daisy Fried’s poem “Torment”
- Amy on What Should I Do With the Dead Turk in the Bedroom? Class, Sex, and Otherness in Downton Abbey
- Rahul Shayar on On the Game of Thrones title sequence
Pages
- About Me
- Akwete Weave poetry chapbook
- Digital Humanities Projects
- Ecotone // poems by Peter Schmidt // wondering through the natural world …
- Engl 009H “Portraits of the Artist” — an introduction to literary and cultural studies for first-year students.
- English 116 American Literature Honors Seminar, Fall 2014: the Literature of the U.S. South
- English 52A (U.S. Fiction, 1900-1950)
- English 52B, U.S. Fiction 1945 to the Present. Swarthmore College, Fall 2017.
- English 53: Modern American Poetry
- English 53R: Advanced Research Topics in U.S. Literature
- English 71B: The Lyric Poem in English (Fall 2013)
- English 71D: The Short Story in the U.S. (Fall 2018)
- Online Essays
- Pocketa Pocketas (pulses & pips of poems)
- Publications
- “Truth so mazed”: Faulkner and U.S. Plantation Fiction
- A review-essay on William Carlos Williams’ _By Word of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish, 1916-1959_
- A selection of older print and digital scholarly work
- On Eros Crossing the Color-Line in William Faulkner and Margaret Mitchell
- On Optimists’ Sons and Daughters: Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter and Peter Taylor’s A Summons to Memphis
- Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus
- The “Raftsmen’s Passage,” Huck’s Crisis of Whiteness, and _Huckleberry Finn_ in U.S. Literary History
- Selected Courses
- SPLEEN poetry chapbook: pissed-off poems for a pissant age.
- Very Large Array // a poetry collage project by Peter Schmidt (1990-2000)
- Very Large Array project
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Meta
Author Archives: Peter Schmidt
“Open Carry” Dildo Protest over Concealed Carry Gun Law, UT Austin
In August 2015 UT Austin student Jessica Jin organized a satiric “open carry dildo” protest. It was open to male and female students, UT employees, alums and any others. The protest targeted a new law (Senate Bill 11, signed by … Continue reading
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Some quick thoughts on current debates about higher education
“Everyone Thinks the Current State of Higher Education is Awful. Who is to Blame?” Daniel W. Drezner, The Washington Post, 14 August 2015. This article summarizing some current debates about higher education is worth reading. In the U.S. we’re definitely … Continue reading
on Haruki Murakami’s The Strange Library
Haruki Murakami, The Strange Library. Published 2005 but written early in his career; translated into English 2014 by Ted Goosen. This brief tale reads like an allegory of reading itself, the Library as emblematic of the world. But it feels … Continue reading
on Rachel Kushner’s novel The Flamethrowers
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Flamethrowers is burning-hot good. It works on so many levels: a coming of age story; a feminist analysis/satire/tragedy re entrapping gender roles; an anatomy of “revolutionary” cultures of … Continue reading
Reducing the Bull: the NYTimes Gets It Wrong Equating Apple Design and Picasso’s Art
Brian Chen’s NYTimes’ August 11th article on design training at Apple is fun and informative, particularly the anecdote about design decisions that led to a Google TV remote control with 78 buttons (all the design teams got what they wanted) … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Other (including pop culture of all kinds), Uncategorized
Tagged Apple computer, art, design, Picasso, popular culture
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Freedom of expression or the need to speak against oppression in a single voice? Coetzee and Gordimer debate
This 1988 debate between Coetzee and Gordimer (RIP) is eloquent and important, and VERY relevant for current debates in 2014. It’s given a fine overview here. The debate is notable for their focus on the _principles_ at stake; their disagreement … Continue reading
Satirist George Saunders Strikes Again
… and none of yer nostalgia-y haze is safe. Makes me almost forgive Mr. Bob Dylan’s own liner notes. I’m just sorry George had to leave off mentioning ELO’s “concept” albums, or Jethro Tull’s, or the majestick edifices of that … Continue reading
Posted in Jazz and other music, Uncategorized
Tagged Bob Dylan, ELO, George Saunders, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, rock music
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Daniel Bosch on Daisy Fried’s poem “Torment”
Here is a fine reading by Daniel Bosch of one of the best poems of the last few years, Daisy Fried’s “Torment,” from her Women’s Poetry: Poems and Advice (2013). I wonder, though, if Bosch is right? That is, is … Continue reading
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on Rilke’s Duino Elegies: the best translation in English
A Goodreads review on mine:
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Sharing an essay by Leigh Alexander, from the Gamasutra website: The tragedy of Grand Theft Auto V
Gamasutra – Opinion: The tragedy of Grand Theft Auto V. For my own much earlier piece on the bizarre metaphysics of video games, plus one way to think about video games’ links to early animated cartoons, see Gamer (1999).