Category: World Literature

No Lectures, No Tracts, No Prayers

Roy Morris, Jr., The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War This book tells the story of Walt’s  practice of the 4th Tiep Hien precept, not to look away from suffering. Actually, here’s the…

The Way It Looked in 1969

Now the age of 101, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has composed poetical works about most U.S. presidents since the administrations of Eisenhower in the 1950s. I recall with appreciation his poem “Tale Tale of the Tall Cowboy”…

Morning and Night

After finishing Hilberg’s trilogy this morning, have spent the evening with the poets: Eluard, Cardenal, Heifetz-Tussman, Glatshteyn, and Brecht.  

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…

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…