Focused
When I decided to really buckle down and study, I’d study fifteen or sixteen hours a day. I’d have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with a book in front of me, never taking my eyes off…
Category: Reading
Three Anthologies
Cristina, As you continue your journey into the world of poetry, I can enthusiastically recommend the following anthologies compiled by Eliot Weinberger: The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry American Poetry since 1950: Innovators and…
Summer Poetry Reading List 2014
Ernesto Cardenal, Apocalypse and Other Poems Ernesto Cardenal, Flights of Victory/Vuelos de Victoria Ernesto Cardenal, From Nicaragua with Love Ernesto Cardenal, Golden UFOs: The Indian Poems Ernesto Cardenal, Pluriverse: New and Selected Poems Ernesto Cardenal, Psalms Ernesto Cardenal, The Doubtful Strait Ernesto Cardenal, Zero Hour…
Primacy
“[Shoshani] didn’t teach piety; he taught the texts. The texts are more fundamental—and vaster—than piety. “ –Emmanuel Levinas
Reading/212
“But books grant us many possibilities: the possibility of change, the possibility of illumination. It may be that there is no book, however well written, that can remove an ounce of pain from the tragedy…
So I Hugged a Book Today by Sara Rendell
I am not sure why, but when I finished reading The Book of Mev, I hugged it. Maybe my body wanted to be closer to tangible truth. Maybe I was trying to express my gratitude to…
Scintillating Promises (The Joys of Reading and Writing/Reinaldo Arenas)
Reading Reinaldo Areas’ novel The Color of Summer was a breakthrough experience for me. From him (and Eduardo Galeano) I figured out how to structure what eventually became The Book of Mev. The following are some passages I love from his Before…
Share the Wealth, with Christine Padberg: Reading in the Digital Age
In spring 2013, Christine Padberg was granted a sabbatical to explore the intersection of reading and technology, and how colleges can and should support students as they read and study in digital environments. When asked…
Reading/713 (Master Chu)
In reading, you must keep your mind glued to the text. Only when every sentence and every character falls into place have you done a good job of thinking through the work. In general, the…
May We Always Be Amateurs
Nonrequired Reading: Prose Pieces Wislawa Szymborska Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh Herein are a few score short pieces by the Nobel laureate (Literature, 1996), usually no more than a page or two, although…