Christ’s troubled sleep from Milton’s ‘Paradise Regained’, Book IV lines 401-25, c.1816-18, by William Blake Once again I am moved to share an excerpt from my friend Andrew’s Sunday epistle. Armed with a piercing intellect and a PhD in literature, he often crafts entrances into Blake or Milton or Donne that I would not be […]
Poetry
A Controlled Refinement of Sobbing
Nicholas Baker’s writing ranges between forceful and compelling tirades (like his exposure of the wanton destruction of books by the San Francisco Public Library in favor of microfilm) and those excessively detailed, slightly OCDish, minutiae-driven novels that can sometimes be just a little too much. But I always pay attention to what he’s paying attention […]
Onion Love, Part 2
The Traveling Onion It is believed that the onion originally came from India. In Egypt it was an object of worship—why I haven’t been able to find out. From Egypt the onion entered Greece and on to Italy, thence into all of Europe. –Better Living Cookbook When I think how far the onion has traveled […]
Wrenching and Wrangling
Silent Letter It’s what you don’t hear that says struggle as in wrath and wrack and wrong and wrench and wrangle. The noiseless wriggle of a hooked worm might be a shiver of pleasure not a slow writhing on a scythe from nowhere. So too the seeming leisure of a girl alone in her blue […]
The Stevensian Sense
Wallace Stevens, right, with Robert Frost in Key West, circa 1940 (Photo, Alfred A. Knopf) In today’s New York Times Book Review, Helen Vendler reviews the first edition of Wallace Stevens’ poetry to be published in 20 years. This new volume is the work of John Serio, editor of the Wallace Stevens Journal and by […]
Goddessing
A Muse of Water We who must act as handmaidens To our own goddess, turn too fast, Trip on our hems, to glimpse the muse Gliding below her lake or sea, Are left, long-staring after her, Narcissists by necessity; Or water-carriers of our young Till waters burst, and white streams flow Artesian, from the lifted […]
Lean Out a Window
Just Thinking Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window. No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held for awhile. Some dove somewhere. Been on probation most of my life. And the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments count for a lot – peace, you know. Let the bucket of […]
Letting go of Summer
Midwest Eclogue The first day it feels like fall I want to tell my secrets recklessly until there is nothing you don’t know that would make your heart change years from now. How foolish we are to believe we might outlive this distance. I don’t know the names for things in the prairie, where the […]
Harrison’s Four Elements
The Four Elements I. Pasiphaë Wife: word and vow. Invisible. Bound— as heat is to flame. No god did this, no pretty, facile cow. A kingdom of men, blinded. And me—burning to be seen. Burning for him. I chose, did not haggle over price. At last, in the ashes, after, you see me. I made […]
Leslie Harrison’s “Displacement”
One of the many unexpected gifts that has come to me from blogging these last three years is connecting with like-minded people who I would never have met with just my physical presence as a vehicle. One of the best networkers I know writes a blog called Virgin in the Volcano and it was through […]