The Twins, Castor and Pollux Dorothea Rockburne I think the reason I paint, or that I do whatever I do, is to deal with (I don’t think of it as unconscious) subliminal knowledge. And I do think that one has knowledge about things that haven’t occured yet, and I try to work for those kinds […]
Art/Language
Kabir: Swaying Between
Between the conscious and the unconscious, the mind has put up a swing: all earth creatures, even the supernovas, sway between these two trees, and it never winds down. Angels, animals, humans insects by the million, also the wheeling sun and moon; ages go by, and it goes on. Everything is swinging: heaven, earth, water, […]
Ideas, Passions and Extremes
Like thousands of other Stoppard fans, I’m reading Isaiah Berlin’s Russian Thinkers in preparation for doing a Coast of Utopia marathon in May—3 plays, one after another, starting at 11am on a Saturday morning. As soon as the New York Times and the New Yorker reviewed the plays and both referenced the usefulness of Berlin’s […]
Inside Talking to Inside
Donald Hall’s definition of poetry: human inside talking to human inside. It may also be reasonable person talking to reasonable person, but if it is not inside talking to inside, it is not a poem. This inside speaks through the second language. It is the ancient prong of carbon in the arc light. We all […]
Rooting
I’ve now heard two interviews with Elif Shafak, the Turkish novelist who was taken to court by right wing factions in Turkey for having mentioned the Armenian genocide in her fiction writing. I have not yet read her latest novel, Bastard of Istanbul. Even though the American reviews of the book have been mixed, I […]
The Love of Forms
Celestial Music I have a friend who still believes in heaven. Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God. She thinks someone listens in heaven. On earth she’s unusually competent. Brave too, able to face unpleasantness. We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it. […]
This, Now
You Reading This, Be Ready Starting here, what do you want to remember? How sunlight creeps along a shining floor? What scent of old wood hovers, what softened sound from outside fills the air? Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right […]
Craving the Lightning
A few lines to remember during those times when things don’t seem to be coming together: I haven’t written a single poem in months. I’ve lived humbly, reading the paper, pondering the riddle of power and the reasons for obedience. I’ve watched sunsets (crimson, anxious), I’ve heard the birds grow quiet and night’s muteness. I’ve […]
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Quiet Disasters
Fall of Icarus, by Breughel Musee des Beux Arts About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well, they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, […]
The Artist Statement: Once More, with Feeling
The comment below was posted by Elatia Harris, wisewoman and friend, in response to my earlier posting about my discomfort with artist statements. I found her point of view worthy of a front row seat. “Words and I are not friends,” Georgia O’Keeffe famously remarked. And every artist who struggles with writing an artist’s statement […]