Entonces comprendà que su cobardÃa era irreparable. Le rogué torpemente que se cuidara y me despedÃ. Me abochornaba ese hombre con miedo, como si yo fuera el cobarde, no Vincent Moon. Lo que hace un hombre es como si lo hicieran todos los hombres. Por eso no es injusto que una desobediencia en un jardÃn […]
… the Castelreynaldian fantastic does through indirection, unsettling symbol, or calm account of the impossible the very thing literature is meant to: lend voice to solitary experience or singular witness. How many of us, back from a foreign land, then face the difficulty of describing our time there? How often, over the breakfast table or […]
Also filed in
|
|
And then went down to the ship, Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and We set up mast and sail on that swart ship, Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also Heavy with weeping, so winds from sternward Bore us out onward with bellying canvas, Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess. […]
Being aware of the history of literature—or of any other art, for that matter—is really a form of unbelieving, a form of skepticism. If I say to my self, for example, that Wordsworth and Verlaine were very good nineteenth-century poets, then I may fall into the danger of thinking that time has some how destroyed […]
The first thing to say about J.G. Ballard is not that he is among our finest writers of science fiction but that he is among our finest writers of fiction tout court period. Ballard himself might retort that, granted the first claim, the second is redundant, since the only important fiction being produced today is […]
I’m continually impressed by Ezra Pound’s translations of Li Bai (or Li Po). This poem in particular, and especially now, as many of my friends (so many) scatter across the country. They all go to better things, and not a one is sad, but nonetheless, to echo Pound: Let us resolve also to make nothing […]
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Let’s not postpone enjoying poetry until we have time for poetry. Make time instead. This one is by Pablo Neruda. Si Tu Me Olvidas Quiero que sepas una cosa.

 Tú sabes cómo es esto: si miro la luna de cristal, la rama roja del lento otoño en mi ventana, si toco junto al fuego la […]
Friday, February 12, 2010
Quickly now, a snippet of cleanhanded searchlores: A method of finding free poetry that doesn’t step on any moral grass medians. This question of morality in fetching information is a stickyslick one, and I haven’t plumbed the full track of its stone wall for uneven spots yet. (If you have thoughts, I would like to […]
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Jessica saw the shrug, thought, This is the age of the shrug. […] Our civilization could well die of indifference within it before succumbing to external attack. — Frank Herbert, Children of Dune
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
I listened to Librivox’s first collection of Spanish poetry last night, even though I have very little Spanish. Mostly to hear the way the language fits together, and to feel the cadence of their speech. I especially liked one poem on first listen, Manuel Acuña’s Nocturno a Rosario (mp3). The translation doesn’t impress me—though, to […]