Why Is Writing Easier Than Speaking for Introverts? Here’s the Science
Many introverts are naturally gifted writers — so why do they clam up or draw a blank when speaking?
Friday, October 30, 2020
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Why Write in Form?
Mastering the traditional ways to forge new ones.
"Perhaps some of this opposition stems from a common misconception. Unlike other arts—and perhaps even other forms of writing—readers and writers alike often associate poetry with feeling, not technique. Part of this may stem from a misunderstanding of William Wordsworth’s famous definition of poetry, in which he begins, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. …” His wording encourages a reading in which poetry simply occurs and does so uncontrollably. If this is the part of the quotation that sticks with you, it’s no surprise that you might associate poetry more with emotional intensity and less with the how of its conveyance. But in the second half of that quotation, Wordsworth tempers his original statement: “... it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” Those unexpected and powerful feelings are actually being observed at a calming distance from that emotion."
Shifting the Focus From Sylvia Plath's Tragic Death to Her Brilliant Life.
Shifting the Focus From Sylvia Plath's Tragic Death to Her Brilliant Life.
“I hope to free Plath, from the cultural baggage of the past 50 years,” Heather Clark writes in her new biography, “and reposition her as one of the most important American writers of the 20th century.”
Monday, October 26, 2020
Emily Dickinson: Iambic Meter & Rhyme
Emily Dickinson: Iambic Meter & Rhyme
Emily Dickinson possessed a genius for figurative language and thought. Whenever I read her, I’m left with the impression of a woman who was impish, insightful, impatient, passionate and confident of her own genius. Some scholars portray her as being a revolutionary who rejected (with a capital R) the stock forms and meters of her day.
The Pleasures of Pessimism
The kind of truth pessimists tell us will always be a subversive truth.
"Toward the end of my graduate course in literary translation I introduce the students to Samuel Beckett, in particular Arsene’s speech in the novel Watt. Watt has just arrived at Mr. Knott’s house and since when one servant arrives another must depart, Arsene is leaving. Before he does so, he gives Watt the benefit of a lifetime’s disillusionment in a twenty-page monologue. This is the passage I offer my students:
Personally of course I regret everything. Not a word, not a deed, not a thought, not a need, not a grief, not a joy, not a girl, not a boy, not a doubt, not a trust, not a scorn, not a lust, not a hope, not a fear, not a smile, not a tear, not a name, not a face, no time, no place, that I do not regret, exceedingly. An ordure from beginning to end. And yet, when I sat for Fellowship, but for the boil on my bottom… The rest, an ordure. The Tuesday scowls, the Wednesday growls, the Thursday curses, the Friday howls, the Saturday snores, the Sunday yawns, the Monday morns, the Monday morns. The whacks, the moans, the cracks, the groans, the welts, the squeaks, the belts, the shrieks, the pricks, the prayers, the kicks, the tears, the skelps, and the yelps. And the poor old lousy old earth, my earth and my father’s and my mother’s and my father’s father’s and my mother’s mother’s and my father’s mother’s and my mother’s father’s, and................................................................................."
Memories in Diaspora # 326
وارد سالنی شدم. کسی مرا به سالن تئاتر راهنمایی کرد و گفت: قرار است ژاک تاتی تمرین های بازیگری را ادامه بدهد.
پرسیدم: ژاک تاتی؟ ژاک تاتی که مرده؟
کسی گفت: نه!
منظورش این بود که ژاک تاتی، که در حقیقت ژاک تاتی نبود، یک کارگردان فرانسوی است که فقط اسمش شبیه ژاک تاتی است!
Saturday, October 24, 2020
Two Pigeons
They’ve perched for hours
on that window-ledge, scarcely
moving. Beak to beak,
a matched set, they differ
almost imperceptibly—
like salt and pepper shakers.
It’s an event when they tuck
(simultaneously) their pinpoint
heads into lavender vests
of fat. But reminiscent
of clock hands blandly
turning because they must
have turned—somehow, they’ve
taken on the grave,
small-eyed aspect of monks
hooded in conferences
so intimate nothing need
be said. If some are chuckling
in the park, earning
their bread, these are content
to let the dark engulf them—
Read more in this link
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
The Myth of ‘Bloody Mary’
History remembers the English queen as a murderous monster, but the real story of Mary I is far more nuanced.
Monday, October 19, 2020
Memories in Diaspora # 325
“ساندویچ نیمه ایرانی- نیمه آمریکایی”
“لیز” چشم هایی عجیب دارد. خیره. ثابت. حریص. او همیشه به غذایم خیره می شود. بعد به لب هایم. بعد به گلویم که چطور غذایم را قورت می دهم. یکبار آنقدر در موقع گاز زدن به لایه های درونی ساندویچم خیره شده بود که دندان هایم ناگهان کل شدند. فلج شدند و ساندویچ گاز زده نیمه ایرانی- نیمه آمریکایی ام را دو دستی به او تقدیم کردم.
ساندویچ ام طعم ساندویچ های مهاجرانی را داشت که محتویات درونی اش از قسمت لاغر مغازه ها خریداری شده اند. و با طعم نعناع و ریحان و مرزه تازه از باغچه مهاجران، جان تازه ای به خود گرفته اند.
Thursday, October 15, 2020
The Social Dilemma
The Social Dilemma is a 2020 American docudrama film directed by Jeff Orlowski and written by Orlowski, Davis Coombe, and Vickie Curtis. The film explores the rise of social media and the damage it has caused to society, focusing on its exploitation of its users for financial gain through surveillance capitalism and data mining, how its design is meant to nurture an addiction, its use in politics, its effect on mental health (including the mental health of adolescents and rising teen suicide rates), and its role in spreading conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate and aiding groups such as flat-earthers.
Read more on The Social Dilemma
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Nobel Laureate Louise Glück’s Love Poem
CROSSROADS
by Louise Glück
My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer
I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and unfamiliar,
like what I remember of love when I was young —
love that was so often foolish in its objectives
but never in its choices, its intensities
Too much demanded in advance, too much that could not be promised —
Monday, October 12, 2020
Memories in Diaspora # 324
“یک خواب. شاید هم دو تا”
من می دانم که خواب دیده بودم….
(خواهش می کنم نگوئید که چرا همه اش خواب سرهای بریده می بینم. یا بوهایی در خواب می شنوم که همه اش به گوشت سوخته ربط پیدا می کند. باور کنید که من بی تقصیرم! باور کنید که من دلم بیشتر از شما برای شما می سوزد اگر بخواهید این خواب ها را تا آخر دنبال کنید. مگر اینکه آدمی باشید مثل زیگموند فروید یا کارل یونگ که بخواهید از توی آن ها یک چیزبدرد بخوری در بیاورید که مفهوم خواب را برای آیندگان روشن کند!)
بقیه را در لینک بخوانید
An Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance
In the 1920’s, creative and intellectual life flourished within African American communities in the North and Midwest regions of the United States, but nowhere more so than in Harlem. The New York City neighborhood, encompassing only three square miles, teemed with black artists, intellectuals, writers, and musicians. Black-owned businesses, from newspapers, publishing houses, and music companies to nightclubs, cabarets, and theaters, helped fuel the neighborhood’s thriving scene. Some of the era’s most important literary and artistic figures migrated to or passed through “the Negro capital of the world,” helping to define a period in which African American artists reclaimed their identity and racial pride in defiance of widespread prejudice and discrimination.
Saturday, October 10, 2020
Boise Rumi night
Boise Rumi night series, an insightful event with artists from all parts of the U.S., created by Howard Olivier for Rumi’s 813th birthday.
Thursday, October 8, 2020
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
... a Poem That Heals Fish
This Is a Poem That Heals Fish: An Almost Unbearably Wonderful Picture-Book About How Poetry Works Its Magic
“A poem … is when you are in love and have the sky in your mouth.”
Elizabeth Bishop on Solitude
Elizabeth Bishop on Why Everyone Should Experience at Least One Long Period of Solitude in Life
" This delicate dance between solitude and communion is what the Pulitzer-winning poet Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911–October 6, 1979) explores in a letter found in Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell (public library) — the epistolary record of one of the most beautiful and enduring friendships in creative culture."
Emily Dickinson's Revolutionary and Reclusive Life....
Emily Dickinson's Revolutionary and Reclusive Life....
............................................................
“What does she look like?” I said. “The lady in the yellow house?”
“I don’t know, my dear. Not many see her face-to-face. They say that she is small, though, and that she dresses always in white.”
We moved from pot to pot. He plucked the wilted petals as he went.
“Is she lonely, do you think?”
Memories in Diaspora # 323
“زلزله، زندگی، یک لحظه، یک تصویر”
................................................
قوقولی قوقو
خروسی توتول سرخ، پرهای رنگی اش را تکان داد.
ماری فش فش کنان از کنارش گذشت.
زالویی در مزرعه برنج توی گودالی مرطوب فرو رفت.
خروس، دانه ای را برای مرغی کاوید.
مرغ، تنها ایستاده بود زیر آفتاب
کمی دورتر از او.
دختری دفتر خاطراتش را بغل کرد
چهارده روز پیش نوشتنش را آغاز کرده بود.
نوشته بود که مهرداد
او را در کوچه ای تعقیب کرده است
و موهای مهرداد درست مثل عکس لئوناردو دوکاپریو
که دوستش در مدرسه به او نشان داده بود
قاپی کوچک دارند.
نگاهش دو دو زد میان جمعیت پریشان
و
نوشت: نمیدانم خانه مهرداد کجاست!
...........................................
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Monday, October 5, 2020
Enjambment in Poetry
Simply put, enjambment is when the end of a phrase extends past the end
of a line. The definition of “enjambment” in French is “to step over.”
In poetry, this means that a thought “steps over” the end of a line and
into the beginning of the next line, with no punctuation, so that the
reader must read through the line break quickly to reach the conclusion
of the thought.
Here are examples that show how different poets have used enjambment. Read them aloud to hear the rhythm and where the poets place the emphasis in each line.
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922)
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
"The Golf Links Lie So Near the Mill"
"The Golf Links Lie So Near the Mill"
The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.
Clearly, this poem is extremely short and concise and is written in an ABCB rhyme scheme. When a poem is this short, every word in the poem is chosen for a specific reason even if it doesn't seem like it. However, this small poem contains a large social message and is actually a satire.
Read more...
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