Paying Attention
A year ago, I was recommending that friends read a short, invigorating book by Rebecca Solnit, entitled, Hope in the Dark. This year, I will recommend an amazing tour de force of paying attention, in…
Category: World Literature
Religion 101: Thoughts from Sri Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Translated into English with an introduction by Swami Nikhilananda God can be realized through all paths. All religions are true. The important thing is to reach the roof. You…
Gleanings and Connections
Anne Waldman and Laura Wright, editors, Cross Worlds: Transcultural Poetics—An Anthology Dear Layla: “modernist textual montage/collage of a wide-ranging array mixing the personal and the historical” Dear Layla: “Ezra Pound’s Cantos gave me a way…
Gratitude/555
I give thanks for translators whose labors allow me to meditate on the teachings of sages throughout time, like David Hinton’s work with Confucius’s Analects… 1.16 The Master said: “Don’t grieve when people fail…
Training Our Memory
Adam Zagajewski, Another Beauty Translated by Clare Cavanagh Memoirs of a young poet who studied in Krakow. Mostly it is the short aperçus that captured my attention and interest, plus the method of writing a…
Sending a Poem and Its Translation to a Friend
This is by Nicanor Parra. Sound familiar? Parra. As in Violeta Parra (Nicanor’s sister). As in Gracias a la Vida. As in her own recording of same (YouTube hers, not Mercedes’s) As in try and…
Treat Yourself
Read Virginia Woolf on Montaigne.
Share the Wealth with Matthew Miller: Rumi, Sufi Path of Love, and the Politics of “Mysticism”
Matthew Miller will lead us in a wide ranging discussion about Persian Sufi poetry. He will touch on the problems with many popular translations of Rumi and explore the “Sufi path of love” by introducing us to…
Putting Marginalia to Use
for Danielle Mackey Eduardo Galeano, The Book of Embraces 31 Saturday October 2009 I reread this book for one reason: To see if it could help me generate some ideas as to form and content…
Reminder to Self
When you encounter those who are wicked, unrighteous, foolish, dim-witted, deformed, vicious, chronically ill, lonely, unfortunate, or handicapped, you should think: “How can I save them?” And even if there is nothing you can do,…