An Odious Comparison?
Norman Mailer once related a story he came across: Somewhere around the turn of the century, Chekhov visits Tolstoy. He takes the train to the nearest station. Let’s say it’s wintertime. He rents two horses…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
Coming in Two Weeks! Liz Burkemper on Thomas Merton
Liz is generous enough to host a “Merton Hour” for us to be better acquainted with the prolific and prophetic monk Thomas Merton. Details soon!
Share the Wealth with Matt Taibbi: How Reading the News Is Like Smoking
For this Share, I invite you to read an essay by independent journalist Matt Taibbi, whom I began reading two years ago. See what you make of his argument, given your varied experiences over the…
A Woman Who Is Part of the Proletariat of Billions of Artists
For Elizabeth Jane Burkemper This week I took a couple of days to read David Stephen Calonne’s new collection, Conversations with Dianne di Prima. In fall 2018, several friends and I explored di Prima in…
Yoga Sutra Journal by Yael
Yael invited me to join her in a reading/discussion of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. We talk via Zoom or email each other on Friday mornings. The following is part of the first reflection she shared with…
Our Good News Is… : A Summer Writing Course
“We often ask, ‘What’s wrong?’ Doing so, we invite painful seeds of sorrow to come up and manifest. We would be much happier if we tried to stay in touch with the healthy, joyful seeds…
Denying Adorno
I have no idea that at the same time in the United States of America, Theodore Adorno has come out with the sweeping statement that to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. A meaningful, powerful…
Keep Going
He used to say,“It is not your dutyTo complete the work, But neither are you freeTo desist from it…” –Rabbi Tarfon, Pirke Avot, 2.21
Jack and Allen
This website is indebted in a variety of ways to Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. For example, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage from their one-liners such as “Be in love with yr life” (JK)…