Kenneth Rexroth, 100 Poems from the JapaneseNew Directions, 1964 Dear EJ Kenneth Rexroth—poet, polymath, anarchist, and pacifist—is a fine guide to Chinese and Japanese poetry. He provided six books of translation for the enrichment of…
Yesterday I had lunch and spent some time with Andrew Ivers, a gentleman and a scholar, at Courtesy Diner on Hampton. Of course, we eventually came around to Bob Dylan, after Andrew gave me a…
Norman Podhoretz, Ex-Friends: Falling out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel & Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer In a recent post, I acknowledged finally paying closer attention to the second precept of Thich…
“Appreciation is the sacrament.”—Allen Ginsberg Year after year, my understanding of “wealth” expands. I’ve been hosting these events for 10 years now, and it’s only today that it occurred to me to address the crucial…
Instructions for living a life: Pay attention.Be astonished.Tell about it.–Mary Oliver, from “Sometimes” Laura …When I Am Among the Trees When I am among the trees,especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks…
Last night in Our Good News class, Dianne Lee read Wild Geese to us. This led me to think it would be worthwhile to invite fans of Mary Oliver to do likewise this Sunday night:…
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…
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…
Dear Poet. I finally got my Walt class together… maybe you could join us as a guest speaker at some point, tell us what you thought of him. But if you are indeed interested/curious about…
As I was reciting some Whitman poems this morning and noticing my mood improving, I realized: I want to invite friends to read Whitman this summer. There was never any more inception than there is now,Nor…