Archive - Pens and Poison

The Crisis of Artistic Creativity

Theodor Adorno's Warning for the Modern Age

Feb 3 •

January 2025

Philip Larkin's “Aubade”

A Pens and Poison Poetry Analysis

Jan 30 •

and

The Eternal Now: How Present Tense Fiction Is Eroding Literary Depth

The rise of homogenized fiction and the cultural cost of losing perspective

Jan 27 •

Neil Gaiman, #MeToo, and the Moral Crisis of BDSM

How the normalization of sadomasochism exposes the dangers of a society unmoored from traditional values

Jan 23 •

The Silencing of Ovid

Ovid's Metamorphoses and Columbia University’s Fraught Relationship with its Core Curriculum

Jan 21 •

Students Are Unprepared to Read Books

How high schools and universities are failing the next generation of readers

Jan 16 •

You Need to Read More

On the humanities, literature, and publishing in the era of DEI and AI.

Published on Contra • Jan 15

1:16:27

Why We Need a Literary Canon

The enduring value of preserving the best of human thought and expression

Jan 14 •

Staying Productive While Waiting on Literary Agent Responses

Journey to Publication - Week 12

Jan 13 •

Why We Should Free Literary Study from Marxist Proponents

How ideological extremism is shaping—and endangering—the humanities

Jan 8 •

What Middle School Taught Me About the Literary World

Journey to Publication - Weeks 10 & 11

Jan 6 •

Ivies in Crisis

America's elite universities face mounting challenges in reputation and relevance

Jan 3 •

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