Szym and Rez (NPM, 4.6.22)
Wislawa SzymborskaABC I’ll never find out nowWhat A. thought of me.If B. ever forgave me in the end.Why C. pretended everything was fine.What part D. played in E.’s silence.What F. had been expecting, if anything.Why…
Category: World Literature
4.4.22, National Poetry Month
Contemporary war is a bureaucratic and capitalistic enterprise that requires its bored clerks, soulless administrators, ignorant taxpayers, contradictory priests, and encouraging families. If we understood that a war machine is a pervasive system of complicity…
Styron/Kerouac
Recently, I read Jack Kerouac’s novel, Tristessa, which didn’t take long but it was an unpleasant experience. Not long after, I came across the following prediction in James West’s Conversations with William Styron from 1962: …
Sholem Aleichem-isms
It should never happen to you! Master of the universe, what have I done to deserve all this? Some people have all the luck! I swear, I wouldn’t wish it on a dog! What happened?…
Poem of the Week by Charles Reznikoff
I went to my grandfather’s to say good-bye:I was going away to a school out West.As I came in,My grandfather turned from the window at which he sat(sick, skin yellow, eyes bleary–but his hair still…
Dirda on Proust
Dear CK Michael Dirda is one of my favorite bibliophiles. I have several of his books, which, like Mustich‘s tome, I regularly browse in utmost delight. This morning in his Bound to Please, I came…
Not Flustered, Not Melancholy, Not Anxious
James Laughlin, Ezra Pound’s publisher, observed that “Pound’s translations of Confucian texts, beautiful as is their language, are seldom applauded by Sinologues.” But we common readers may appreciate such versions from the Analects, when they…
Quit Complaining!
Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T’ang Poet Han-shanTranslated and with an Introduction by Burton Watson I first learned of Han-shan 30 years ago when reading Jack Kerouac’s novel, The Dharma Bums, which starred Japhy…
The Main Compass
First Thought: Conversations with Allen GinsbergEdited by Michael Schumacher When it comes to interviews with Ginsberg, I prefer the larger and deeper Spontaneous Mind, which warrants a complete rereading. But then I come across…
Some Works Are Greater Than Others
Edward W. Said, Power, Politics, and Culture: Interviews Edited and with an Introduction by Gauri ViswanathanPantheon Books, 2001 Two writers who are well known for their championing of the literary canon are Harold Bloom and George…