About The Best American Nonrequired Reading Committee

Our selection committee consists of a handful of high school students. One
contingent is in the Bay Area and a second is in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
These students help Dave Eggers edit The Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Daniel Gumbiner is the book's managing editor; Henry W. Leung and Jia Tolentino
are the assistant managing editors facilitating the committee in Michigan.

This collection, published by Houghton-Mifflin, compiles the country's best
fiction, journalism, essays, comics, and humor every year, and introduces
a large readership to dozens of new writers and publications.

The Best American Nonrequired Reading committee comprising
students from dozens of different high schools meets nearly every week of the
year to read, debate, and compile this offbeat but vital anthology.

Want to say something to us? Contact the BANR committee at
nonrequired@gmail.com. We'll read everything you send us.



Richard Howard's "November,1889"

In response to our copious posts about dreaming...
"Curious symptoms withal/for migrane: patterns moving/over surfaces, faint/ most often, fine designs/that would come as a kind of cobweb/ cast iridescent upon the others, a net/ intervening between me and them./ Lord! the things one sees when a fever-lit mind/ grants no middle distance./Prolixity of the real!/ And just when we are grateful/ for the dark, when night resumes us/comes prolixity/of what is unreal/ the melting waxworks of our sleep/called dreams. I am against dreams/ not being one to trust/memory to itself./ In my delirium, then, I had/ conviction of divided identity/ never ceasing to be two persons who/ever thwarted and opposed one another." Richard Howard, "November, 1889"

1 comment:

The Best American Nonrequired Reading Committee said...

Peculiar definition of dreams.

Darkness falls outside my window
Drowsiness overtakes without consent

Sent off to dreamland? or is it
fit to say no man's land?

More than meets the eyes, but
fie, I think I am sleeping.

Trudging errantly down an alley,
A menagerie I am suddenly entering.

Playing the role of ringmaster,
a disaster suddenly occurring.

Reeking of sourness, air weighed
way down on my chest.

Lest I take a breath, I swear that
Death, I would have met.

Vampires fly in left and right,
What to do? Do I fight?

Abort! Abort! Awakened!
What? What just happened?

Shrug. Mustav been a dream.
Dreams are meaningless, but adventurous.
-Terence