Though I knew she had been ill for some time, it was still a shock to hear that Aretha Franklin  (1942-2018) had moved to hospice care...

Lucie Brock-Broido (Concord Poetry Center) The award-winning poet Lucie Brock-Broido  (1956-2018) passed away yesterday at the age of 6...

John Ashbery (from KCRW Bookworm.com ) One of the greatest poets in contemporary American literature, John Ashbery , passed away this ...

It is with sorrow that I report the passing of  Bernard Hoepffner (1946-2017), the belauded French translator of many Anglophone authors ...

' William Melvin Kelley (1937-2017: RIP), from "My Next to Last Hit by 'C. C. Johnson'," in  Blacks at Harvar...

Yves Bonnefoy at the Collège de France in 2001 ( The Telegraph /AP/Getty) On July 1 of this year, one of the most important--arguabl...

Here are some photos from Amiri Baraka 's (1935-2014) homegoing ceremony at the Symphony Hall  on Broad Street  in Newark. It was a re...

Amiri Baraka (at right), at NYU, May 3, 2014 "What will be / the sacred words?" - Amiri Baraka A great light, a fire, a f...

Richard Iton Last week I sadly learned of the death, after the recurrence of a previous illness, of my former Northwestern University c...

Whitney Houston in 2009 (AP/Evan Evangelisti) Whitney Houston (1963-2012) Whitney Houston, "The Greatest Love of All" ...

Not much blogging thus far this month; I am mainly trying to keep my head above water amidst the onrushing rapids of winter quarter teachin...

A girl holds a South Sudan flag with stripes symbolising the people, their blood and the land. Photograph: Ho/Reuters After decades of w...

Earlier today via Rod McCullom 's (@ RodMcCullom , Rod 2.0) Twitter feed, I learned of the passing of Taylor Siluwé, a fellow blogger...

Édouard Glissant (1928-2011), among the greatest intellectuals, artists, critics, creators, thinkers to emerge from the 20th century Ca...