Please Go Away
I promise myself that, except for some parenthetical asides, this will be the last post I make about Donald J. Trump; this is what I think he was/is thinking <SIGH>
The Itch
The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone—more familiarly, the ITCZ (called the “Itch”)—is a belt about 5 degrees north and south of the Equator. It is an area where the northern and southern trade winds clash, causing storms and then pushing the air upwards and becalming the atmosphere into windlessness: the doldrums. Although the etymology of the word […]
Thoughts on The Use of Poetry
[Thanks to T. S. Eliot] What are poets good for? The 20th Century is not sure. Eliot thinks that by rights a poet should be useful: he ought to guard the language against becoming barbaric; and that he ought to be entertaining. But the poet must also, as Eliot puts it, “make us from time […]
On Poetry (July 2021)
I am pleased and honored to refer to these sites where my recent poetry has been published: The first two are at OPEN: The Journal of Arts & Letters, Jeff Streeby, editor in chief. The combination of graphics and literary arts is very striking here. The last site noted above is Vita Brevis Press, founder […]
I Am A Writer
I haven’t decided if this title should be emphasized this way—I am a writer—or this way—I am a writer. Of course, I could just give in to total emphasis and yell: I AM A WRITER, but that isn’t the point, not even close. At the end of December 2020 (the day after my birthday to […]
Old Habits
When I was in college and introduced to T. S. Eliot’s poetry, I fell in love. Something in his words, the arrangement of his lines, the ideas simply snatched me up in an intellectual embrace. I talked about his poetry so much that my boyfriend at the time bought me the collected works of […]
A Bad Penny
“A bad penny always turns up.” Ugh. I mistakenly thought that Biden’s election would mean the end of the political insanity of the Trump Era, but no—it goes on, like spiteful, mindless imps who only understand destruction and malice. So, Trump and his minions carry on. But, unlike Felonious Gru, they are not “reformed villains” […]
Creative Writing
Creative writing—fiction, poetry—like any art starts, I think, with a “gift,” a talent, a desire to create sense and meaning out of our lives. It may start with a conversation, an event, a memory, even an imagined idea—these are the “cloth” that all humans have; the writer, however, makes something of the cloth: gives it […]
T.S. Eliot
If it is possible to have a “hero” as a writer, then I choose T.S. Eliot as mine. Now being called a “paleo-modernist” (as if he were some class of dinosaur), I believe he speaks to every age that has succeeded him, that his poetry and drama are rich, inspiring literary works, and that the […]
Idiots
You want to know who are the idiots, traitors, anti-democracy jerks who are siding with the liars (Trump), criminals (Texas Attorney General Paxton), and their enablers (too numerous to mention)? Their names will go into the records of the U.S. Supreme Court on an Amicus Brief: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22O155/163403/20201210153048641_Texas%20v.%20Pennsylvania%20Amicus%20Brief%20of%20106%20Representatives.pdf Let us NEVER forget them. And, by the […]