Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds … More Christopher Marlowe
See Siegfried Sassoon’s Survivors, written at Craiglockhart in October, 1917: No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and strain Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. Of course they’re ‘longing to go out again,’ — These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk. They’ll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed Subjection to the … More Flag Day
I Another book I would like to reread is Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo. I think of it now because I have realized that academic writing is easier than blogging. I started blogging to jump-start academic writing, but their relationship seems to have reversed itself. This might be a sign of success. My scholarly texts would … More Jazz Poem, Voodoo Aesthetics
I am reading a fascinating and also funny essay by a scholar who spent most of her life working on the poet of my book manuscript on hiatus. It recounts the misadventures that work on this poet – who might be a shade, might be a vampire, might be an arsonist or a murderer, or … More The Idea of Order at Key West
Back to Shahrazad III At dinner that night I discovered that the past week’s FARC attack had taken place just outside Pasto. As a left leaning, petit bourgeois intellectual I do not know what to feel, someone said. The FARC are excellent guerrillas, we really like them. Usually nothing happens anyway, the boys just come … More Shahrazad IV
Back to Shahrazad II Tupac drove us to a gated and heavily guarded compound. Inside the white walls were a lawn, a restaurant, and a number of pavilions. This was the club of the Bank of the Republic, where we were to stay. Official and fancy though it was, its nighttime attendant seemed a bit … More Shahrazad III
Back to Shahrazad I About a week after the phone call, or the dream, a fax arrived from the Bank of the Republic of Colombia: we urgently need the title of your lecture. So now I phoned. It seemed I was to cancel my regular classes for a week to participate in a symposium at … More Shahrazad II
I can compose calmly and directly now instead of having my brain expand and pulsate in asymmetrical ways. And composition is craftsmanlike and pleasant. As it gets sharper, I can feel the synapses click and the blood run through the capillaries in my temples. I have more wind in my chest, and more space in … More Shahrazad I
By Karen Polster, via Zuky: The poems at Angel Island are among the most dramatic finds in American literature. The crumbling buildings of the former immigration station in San Francisco were scheduled to be demolished, when bits and pieces of Chinese writing were glimpsed behind the peeling paint. These characters turned out to be poetry, … More Poems at Angel Island
Arte de Amar Se queres sentir a felicidade de amar, esquece a tua alma. A alma é que estraga o amor. Só em Deus ela pode encontrar satisfação. Não noutra alma. Só em Deus — ou fora do mundo. As almas são incomunicáveis. Deixa o teu corpo entender-se com outro corpo. Porque os corpos se … More Manuel Bandeira
coldhearted scientist وداد 