Not Sentimental?
Here’s another poem — John Crowe Ransom’s “Dead Boy” — I have loved a long time & though I now find Ransom’s celebration of the “dynastic” families of the Agrarian South pretty offensive, the language of this poem is not sentimental. Ransom does not ask the reader to produce an emotional response for which [...]
Baseball’s Christianist Assholes; Or: Go Boston!
I was getting ready to root for the Rockies in the World Series, partly because I love a newcomer / underdog & partly because I think more than one championship a century would be bad for Boston’s soul. And then Michael O’Hare at the RBC blog had to ruin my (admittedly superficial) fan-affiliation by linking [...]
Reevaluating James Wright’s “A Blessing”
There is a poem in my second book that channels Wright’s voice so effectively that even someone who knew Wright’s work fairly well might mistake it for the real thing. James Wright’s poetry was once tremendously important to me, but these days, when I go back to it, the work feels sentimental to me. I’m [...]
Hesse as Individualist
Via Wood s Lot, this thought from Hermann Hesse:
My instinct as an individualist and artist has always warned me most urgently against this capacity of men for becoming drunk on collective suffering, collective pride, collective hatred, and collective honour. When this morbid exaltation becomes perceptible in a room, a hall, a village, a city, or [...]
“Dangerous” Dog Breeds
Someone pretending to knowledge & authority trotting out the tired idea that some breeds of dog are inherently more dangerous than others. There are no “dangerous dog breeds,” just dangerous dog owners. (Inbreeding & maltreatment can produce psychosis in dogs, which can make individual animals dangerous.) Every generalization about a breed in the blog entry [...]
Doris Lessing
I don’t know Lessing’s work very well, but I remember being blown away by The Golden Notebook when I was in my twenties. I probably missed a lot of the message, but I was carried along by the sheer audacity of the thing. This piece in the Telegraph reminded me of a couple of other [...]
I Am So Hip (for an Old Guy)
Getting in the blogroll of This Recording may not be up there with the Nobel Prize, but then I’m no Al Gore or Doris Lessing. Maybe not up there with an NEA grant of a Fulbright, quite, but making the TR blogroll is so much cooler than getting invited to Yaddo. Blogs are the new [...]
Contemporary Short Stories, Music, Poetry
I really enjoyed this essay by Jean Thompson responding to Stephen King’s (predictable) take-down of the “literary” short story. The same argument about “elitism” & “difficulty” has been made (endlessly) about contemporary poetry. Not directly related, perhaps, but I was reminded of my old friend Davy Rakowski’s remarks about writing contemporary music:
I write music. Concert [...]
Peppers
Brought in the last of the peppers yesterday since we’re now having freezing nights. We’re drying them in various places around the house, including beneath the spice cabinet.
Lenny Bruce’s Birthday
Steve Gimbel reminds us that today is Lenny Bruce’s birthday & links to a great You Tube video / audio clip. Bruce is one of the great poets of the 20th century.
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