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Tag Archives: cpb
on the Persistence of Poetry (Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin)
“There is a relation between language and truth that is very subtle and is always changing. For the reader or listener who can appreciate the constant shifting, each new poem one finds is a fresh statement of that relation. Because … Continue reading
Twitter has destroyed my writing… (Sommer Browning)
“Twitter has destroyed my writing, but not as much as interacting with people has. Interacting with people has destroyed my writing, but not as much as being in love has. Being in love has really destroyed my writing, but not … Continue reading
“To the New Year” (Graham Foust)
[since I can’t write a poem to save my life, might as well share a good one I just tripped over. Maybe my new writing year will start tomorrow…] "To the New Year" Comes upon and at me does your … Continue reading
“Thy Voice in the Garden” (Sally Smith)
from a reader: “Thy Voice in the Garden” My mother dipped me in the river, too, because she was afraid. But her hands were large, and so was I (by then) and much of me the water never touched. Walking … Continue reading
from “Paris Was Yesterday” (Tony Judt)
“The seductive appeal of French intellectuality is undeniable. During the middle third of the twentieth century, every aspiring thinker from Buenos Aires to Bucharest lived in a Paris of the mind. Because French thinkers wore black, smoked Gitanes, talked theory, … Continue reading
Posted in Commonplace Book
Tagged cnf, cpb, intellectualism, memoir, paris, tony judt
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from “In Love With Trains” (Tony Judt)
“According to the literary theorist René Girard, we come to yearn for and eventually love those who are loved by others. I cannot confirm this from personal experience—I have a history of frustrated longings for objects and women who were … Continue reading
on the Flexibility of Myth (and Gossip) (Ingrid Rowland)
‘Myths, in the very old days, were as endlessly flexible as gossip, and gossip is how, in essence, they began: gossip about the gods and heroes, beings as universally famous as celebrities, but gifted, unlike most celebrities, with a true, … Continue reading
Posted in Commonplace Book
Tagged Art, cpb, gossip, ingrid rowland, legend, myth, tiepolo
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on Zadie Smith and “Ideological Inconsistency” (Michael Wood)
‘Changing My Mind is a very good title for a collection of essays, a genre in which one is supposed to be trying things out or trying things on. But the intimation is not as simple as it seems. “I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Commonplace Book
Tagged cpb, criticism, michael wood, nonfiction, Writing, zadie smith
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on Bloggers and the Global Mashup Fantasy (Jason Epstein)
“Though bloggers anticipate a diversity of communal projects and new kinds of expression, literary form has been remarkably conservative throughout its long history while the act of reading abhors distraction, such as the Web-based enhancements—musical accompaniment, animation, critical commentary, and … Continue reading
on Digitization and Censorship (Jason Epstein)
“So far I have attempted to foresee the digital future in instrumental terms. There is also a moral dimension, for we are a troublesome species with a long history of self-destruction. The industry that Gutenberg launched eventually made possible wide … Continue reading
on the Solitary Work of Literary Creation (Jason Epstein)
Digitization will encourage an unprecedented diversity of new specialized content in many languages. The more adaptable of today’s general publishers will survive the redundancy of their traditional infrastructure but digitization has already begun to spawn specialized publishers occupying a variety … Continue reading
“Ai” (Denise Duhamel)
“Ai” There is a chimp named Ai who can count to five. There’s a poet named Ai whose selected poems Vice just won the National Book Award. The name "Ai" is pronounced "I" so that whenever I talk about the … Continue reading
“We Are Many” (Pablo Neruda)
Of the many men who I am, who we are, I can’t find a single one; they disappear among my clothes, they’ve left for another city. When everything seems to be set to show me off as intelligent, the fool … Continue reading
“Pythagoras Goes to Work” (Lee Slonimsky)
[Shared by Ed Byrne, an apt poem for Pi Day] “Pythagoras Goes to Work” Triangulate the sun’s ascent. Two oaks the baseline on this steel-chill winter’s day. Diversion, suddenly now, in the way a hawk bisects low triangle of … Continue reading
Posted in Art & Life & Politics, Commonplace Book
Tagged cpb, lee slonimsky, pi, pi day, poetry
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Laughter is the father of beauty (William Matthews)
“Hamlet, with Yorick’s skull in hand: ‘Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment , that were wont to set the table on a roar?’ Laughter is the father of beauty.” –William Matthews
Posted in Commonplace Book
Tagged beauty, cpb, hamlet, journals, shakespeare, william matthews
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“Untitled” (Denis Johnson)
“Untitled” Stranger and stranger to one another waitress on her hands and knees to brush the carpet underneath a booth. You know– crawling around on all fours like a dog underneath a human booth etcetera to be human—to crawl—to walk … Continue reading
…poems are flesh (Donald Hall)
“Poetry fails, in each poem, to be as good as poetry ought to be—or as I somehow think it somewhere is, somewhere I’m not looking. Every flesh is flawed and poems are flesh.” –Donald Hall
on his offensive journal (Jules Renard)
“This journal of mine will offend many people. It has offended even me… I do not feel that I have been sincere; I tried too hard to have succeeded.” –Jules Renard from The Journal of Jules Renard (January 1892)
…nobody or everlastingly plagued (Jules Renard)
“I can’t get around this dilemma: I have a horror of troubles, but they whip me up, make me talented. Peace and well being, on the contrary, paralyze me. Either be a nobody, or everlastingly plagued. I must make a … Continue reading
“To a Young Poet” (Mahmoud Darwish)
[I started noting great lines and stanzas to share from this poem by Mahmoud Darwish, but before long had in some way marked up the whole thing. I’m ashamed to admit I’d never heard of Darwish—much less read any of … Continue reading
Posted in Art & Life & Politics, Poetry & Poetics
Tagged cpb, mahmoud darwish, poetry, Poetry and Poetics, writers on writing
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