Read “Talkings” by Natalie Giarratano.
Canadian Alice Munro has won the Man Booker International Prize. (This is a different award than the Man Booker that Margaret Atwood won in 2000 – the International prize is for a body of work rather than a specific book.) Here are some of her short stories: “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” “Deep-Holes,” “Dimension,” [...]
My favorite focusing exercise comes from William James: Draw a dot on a piece of paper, then pay attention to it for as long as you can. … James argued that the human mind can’t actually focus on the dot, or any unchanging object, for more than a few seconds at a time: It’s too [...]
The most powerful poetic syntax might be the one in which the logics, patterns, arrangements, shapes, and relationships between the words in this vocabulary are measured against our childhoods. – Sarah Vap
Ruth Padel was elected the new Oxford professor of poetry on May 16. She resigned last night after being blamed for the letter campaign (called a smear campaign by the press despite Walcott apparently admitting to it at the time) which led to Derek Walcott’s earlier withdrawal from the competition.
Hartford Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens dedicate The Wallace Stevens Walk, which follows his daily journey from home to work with 13 knee-high granite markers, each with a stanza of “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” on June 11 (via).
“The capital of Europe used to be Brussels,” I announced to nobody in particular. “What?” asked Debbie, but the room didn’t go white, and there was no angry voice of authority shouting in my ear. “You know,” I said, “how I told you about the things we’re not allowed to talk about?” She nodded solemnly. [...]
“The Challenge: Read Infinite Jest over the summer of 2009” (via)
Portraits on potatoes (via). I especially like this and this.
