Indian Summer

Driving home this afternoon I was wondering where the term “Indian summer” originates. We’ve been having a string of warm days even though all the deciduous trees are at the height of their autumn color. So, like any self-respecting post-modern citizen of the global village, I googled the term when I got home. The Wikipedia [...]

Critical Language

I finished my book review, at considerable psychic cost. It will appear in the next issue of The Wallace Stevens Journal. My problem with this sort of criticism is that it seeks to dominate the texts it studies. Though more subtle, I don’t see much functional difference between Blasing’s treatment of lyric poetry & [...]

Not One of the “Usual Suspects”

I cannot be the only one who is savoring the rich irony of the president’s supporters advancing the arguments of the president’s detractors:
â€œHeâ€™s not as well known to everybody within the Beltway as some people; he hasnâ€™t been in and out of the Bush administration or the prior Bush administration, but heâ€™s a rock solid [...]

Refusing to Snip the Essentialist Thread, Or: “Pinker Broaches the Knotty Question of Metaphor”

Douglas Hofstadter’s review of Stephen Pinker: The old reductionist superstar passes the torch to the new reductionist superstar, while taking a swipe at George Lakoff, who has the intellectual honesty to admit that, “Yes, ma’am, it’s metaphor all the way down” Both Hofstadter & Pinker are trying to make the world safe for Minksy’s version [...]

Chill in the Air

Carole & Amy are up in the mountains tonight doing an art thing with SLU students. They took Angel the lab with them, who is no doubt in 7th heaven soaking up the love of hippie girls with no terriers around. I’m home with the terriers. Almost built a fire tonight. Rainy & damp all [...]

I’m Working on a Review of Mutlu Konuk Blasing’s Lyric Poetry

I have been struggling with a review of Mutlu Konuk Blasing’s study, Lyric Poetry, for The Wallace Stevens Journal. I have promised the editor I would give him the review Monday & I’ve set aside tomorrow morning to beat my notes into a 1500 word book review. I confess that I have been having a [...]

Deer with Attitude

I don’t think that I’m imagining seeing more deer around than usual this fall. We always see a lot this time of year. And when we see them they usually take off in the opposite direction. This year, they are just standing around looking at us like they’re stoned. If the deer were guys in [...]

I Swore at the Cable Company Phone Drone

Usually, I am the soul of kindness when dealing with the people who answer the phone for vast impersonal bureaucracies, but tonight, after a long a dropped call & a couple of long periods on hold while being forced to listen to chirpy music & self-serving blather about how convenient Time Warner cable service is, [...]

Logopoeia

To be honest, as much as I treasured, read & re-read my old copy of Pound’s ABC of Reading in my youth, I have always been a little uncertain about exactly what logopoeia means. I mean, I’ve had a vague concept, but nothing like the more detailed understanding I have — or think I have [...]

I Suppose that Makes Me a Conservative

Of a sort. The kind who wants to conserve certain values. Even peculiarly American values. When I teach literature & writing, I find myself returning again & again to the power of language to both clarify & confuse & to the moral responsibility the educated person has to clarify rather than confuse. The study of [...]

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