Gatha of the Week/2

“Waking up this morning, I smile Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.” –Thich Nhat Hanh, Present…

Hold It All/37

In the last thirty years of his life, [Jacob] Glatshteyn’s poetry became an incessant, internalized conversation on Jewish history, the lost world of European Jewry, the birth of Israel, assimilation in America, the tragic demise…

Training Everyday

For a true gentleman [junzi], learning is a matter of working on oneself. When slander and praise, glory and disgrace come, not only is his mind unmoved by such things, but he uses them as…

Gatha of the Week/1

Laura Lapinski recently asked me what a gatha is, as that verse form figures in both The Book of Mev and Dear Layla. That query led to me back to my shelves to peruse Robert Aitken’s book,…

Writing Practice in Haiti, 2010

Occasionally, Sara Rendell asks me for some writing topics for her to take off on.  Thus, the following  email… Tuesday 3 August 2010 Dear Sara, Try these! Looking at the moon at night in Haiti…