We Inter-Are
“What is one’s personality, detached from that of the friends with whom fate happens to have linked one? I cannot think of myself apart from the influence of the two or three greatest friendships of…
Category: World Literature
A Doctor and a Child: Christmas Eve in Managua
Fernando Silva ran the children’s hospital in Managua. On Christmas Eve, he worked late into the night. Firecrackers were exploding and fireworks lit up the sky when Fernando decided it was time to leave. They…
Contemporaries
“Who are my contemporaries?” Juan Gelman asks himself. Juan says that sometimes he comes across [people] who smell of fear, in Buenos Aires, Paris, or anywhere in the world, and feels that these [people] are…
Radical Presence
The following passages are from an interview with U.S. poet Anne Waldman, co-founder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics… Poetry needs the breath. It needs the voice. It needs the body. It needs…
You, Walt, and I (And Most Everybody Else We Know)
Cab, Here’s section 51 of Song of Myself, which you’ve heard me and others quote scores of times, and even today as we discussed The Brothers Karamazov. And you might also enjoy June Jordan’s essay,…
Brainard’s Memories
The NY painter Joe Brainard wrote a wonderful book, I Remember, in which he collected memories from days gone by in one long litany. He writes about ordinary things: chicken noodle soup, juke boxes, tanning,…
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…
Marvelous Error!
for all dear friends who are returning, all dear friends who are leaving, and all dear friends who are staying … Last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt—marvelous error!— that a spring was…
Le Monomanie Merveilleux
Learn it by heart Sur mes cahiers d’écolier Summon it when staring into the abyss Sur toutes les pages blanches Translate it into new millennial American English Sur l’écho de mon enfance One year, translate…
Zen Flesh Zen Bones
Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings Have the fearless attitude of a hero and the loving heart of a child. — Soyen Shaku Many of us are students…