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Tag Archives: poetry
One Shall Be Taken
Two horses–look again– Winged, like cherubim– Watering at a marble trough, Ivy in riot about them. Reality? Silence, bones Saline, a coffin–not a trough– And a tale in the main that Had been uneven, rough, harsh. I’d have done it differently. This … Continue reading
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Tagged cemeteries, creative writing, death, literature, poem, poetry, rapture, writing
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Charles Darwin vs. Thomas Aquinas: What Follows from Our Nature?
At his blog recently, Thomist philosopher Edward Feser wrote the following: “For Aquinas, what is good for us is necessarily good for us because it follows from our nature. As such, even God couldn’t change it, any more than he … Continue reading
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Tagged art, Charles Darwin, evolution, philosophy, poetry, science, Thomas Aquinas
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Who Is William Blake, Really?
William Blake is a poet, not a metaphysician. When someone writes with aphorism, irony, and wild and flamboyant system building (as Blake and Nietzsche did), they are mocking essentialism; they’re showing that language is infinite; that there are a gazillion … Continue reading
FOUND POEM
Somebody on Crenshaw Hit on a bicycle And they are dead.
Vivian Maier: The Emily Dickinson of Photography
I’m super interested in seeing this documentary.
Henry Rollins Tells His Compelling Life Story
The story Henry Rollins tells himself: __________
If Emily Dickinson Wrote a Facebook Profile
Emily Dickinson (poem 288, c. 1861): I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you–Nobody–Too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise–you know! __ How dreary–to be–Somebody! How public–like a Frog– To tell one’s name–the livelong June– To an … Continue reading
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Tagged Emily Dickinson, facebook, life, peacocks, poetry, profiles, selfies
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What Makes Shakespeare So Good? (Hint: Mimesis Might Have Something To Do With It)
In the preface to his eight-volume edition of Shakespeare’s plays (1765), the literary critic Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) had some opinions about what makes Shakespeare so good. Here they are (and notice how many of them are grounded in mimesis): Shakespeare … Continue reading
The Religion Tree: A Poem
THE RELIGION TREE I. The leaf doesn’t fall far from the tree, and we are all leaves on the same tree, and will take our leave from there. II. The yellow leaf signals fall, the green leaf, pride before the fall. … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Nietzsche, poetry, religion, taoism
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Is the Late David Rakoff the Alexander Pope of Novelists?
David Rakoff wrote a whole novel in sing-song rhyme, like a Dr. Seuss book, and it has just been posthumously published. Not sure I like it, but below is a sample. I do like this couplet late in the recording, … Continue reading
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Tagged alexander pope, Dr. Seuss, genres, literature, novels, poetry, writing
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Life
The eagle flies, the crows perch. The eagle craps on the crows’ perch.
What Would Homer Say? Model Writers at Your Shoulder as a Tool for Writing Improvement
Imitation and emulation. The ancient Greek teacher Longinus is among the first persons to address what would become a recurrent theme in the history of rhetoric and literary criticism: the sublime (elevated emotion; ecstasy). His reflections on the sublime can … Continue reading
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Tagged Homer, literature, longinus, poetry, reading, the sublime, writing
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Guitarist in Blue
__________ Your country is vast, But no thing pure. Nothing is. I kiss You, playing both Parts. Off time, A little. Fingers underbug The strings attached. The hole is out front. Wood is at the back. I’m not here, here. … Continue reading
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Tagged blue, depression, guitars, life, love, poem, poetry, sublimation
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An Interview with Charles Hood
__________ Poet and photographer Charles Hood’s most recent book, South x South, based on a trip he made to Antarctica in 2011, has just been published by Ohio University Press (2013). Jordan Davis, poetry editor of The Nation, writes the … Continue reading
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Tagged art, authors, books, Emily Dickinson, life, literature, poems, poetry, travel
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The Tao of Emily, the Calm of Lao Tzu, and Trouble from Blake
Below are two couplets of flower power yin-yang from Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,” written in 1850 when she was aged nineteen. Insofar as anybody knows, it’s the first poem she’d ever written … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, Buddha, Buddhism, Emily Dickinson, Lao Tzu, literature, poetry, Tao, William Blake
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Emily Dickinson’s Poem, “My Life had stood–a Loaded Gun–“
I’d like to offer an existentialist interpretation of Emily Dickinson’s famously perplexing poem, “My Life had stood–A Loaded Gun–” (poem 754 in her collected works). Here’s the poem: My Life had stood–a Loaded Gun– In Corners–till a Day The Owner … Continue reading
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Tagged death, Emily Dickinson, existentialism, God, life, Loaded Gun, poems, poetry, Terror Management Theory
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Sharon Olds in High Form
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Tagged life, literature, odes, poems, poetry, Sharon Olds, songs, tampons, toilets
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Kerouac’s Inspiration
“There’ll be no editing. This book was dictated by the Holy Ghost.” –Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) to his publisher after completing the first draft of On the Road (1951). Kerouac’s mugshot for the United States Naval Reserve in 1943 (eight years … Continue reading
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Tagged art, God, Holy Ghost, Jack Kerouac, life, literature, on the road, poetry, spirit
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A Great Stephen Gould Quote on Evolution
What appears below can be found at the beginning of Dinosaur in a Haystack (1995). It’s hard to contrast the West’s religious era with its secular era more clearly. So much is implied in the way Gould has put this: … Continue reading
