This week’s Longreads Member pick is “Contest of Words,” Ben Lerner‘s October 2012 essay from Harper’s Magazine. Lerner is author of the award-winning 2011 novel Leaving the Atocha Station and three books of poetry: The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw and Mean Free Path.

The story comes recommended by Matt O’Rourke, a longtime Longreads community member and creative director for Wieden and Kennedy in Portland (he also runs the Twitter account @fuckyesreading).

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