Banks, Russell

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A shadow of the sun
a silhouette created by a sunset
One more summer has came and went
and I’m sitting inbetween the hours of 8 and 9
miserable and lonely

– Russell Banks, “Feather of Lead”

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Listen to Russell Banks’ reading for the Poetry Center of Chicago:

Read this interview with Russell Banks from The Paris Review:

The Art of Fiction No. 152

Russell Banks was born on March 28, 1940 in Newton, Massachusetts and raised in the small town of Barnstead, New Hampshire, the son of Earl and Florence Banks. His father, a plumber, deserted the family when Banks was twelve. Banks helped provide for his mother and three siblings. An excelle…

What you believe matters, however. It’s all anyone has to act on. And since what you do is who you are, your actions define you. If you don’t believe anything is true simply because you can’t logically prove what’s true, you won’t do anything. You won’t be anything. You’ll end up spending your life in a rocking chair looking out at the horizon waiting for an answer that never comes. You might as well be dead. It’s an old philosophical problem.

– Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin

Watch this interview with Russell Banks on writing:

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