June 2012
11 posts
From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.
Now—for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart—
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.
Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind’s twelve quarters
I take my endless way.
by A.E. Housman
“Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me—the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe,...
“The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
When Death Comes
by Mary Oliver
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage...
No Second Troy
by W.B. Yeats
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural...
“Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me. I am who I am, doing what I came to do, acting upon you like a drug or a chisel to remind you of your me-ness, as I discover you in myself.” —Audre Lorde
“I always love doors opening. It is part of the reinvention of self that every artist has to do on a daily, monthly, yearly basis. If we don’t take that step out, away from the known and into the unknown, if we don’t take that step through to back home, then we are wasting our talent and our time on earth.
“Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story,...
“Send me out into another life
lord because this one is growing faint
I do not think it goes all the way”
—W.S. Merwin, from “Words from a Totem Animal”
“To play safe, I prefer to accept only one type of power: the power of art over trash, the triumph of magic over the brute.” —Vladimir Nabokov
“Touched by a masterpiece, a person begins to hear in himself that same call of truth which prompted the artist to his creative act. When a link is established between the work and its beholder, the latter experiences a sublime, purging trauma. Within that aura which unites masterpieces and audience, the best sides of our souls are made known, and we long for them to be freed. In those moments we...
