Not So Random Entries, Commonplace Moleskine/4
99. There is a notion of “passing it on,” that simple. One to one. Elder to younger perhaps. That “poetry is news,” that the inspiration for any work you do and the work you do…
Tag: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Not So Random Entries, Commonplace Moleskine/3
100. [T]oday it is not nearly enough to be a saint, but we must have the saintliness demanded by the preset moment, a new saintliness, itself also without precedent. –Simone Weil 200. Poets who died with…
For the Love of a Few Golden Sentences
What is genius but the faculty of seizing and turning to account everything that strikes us? … The greatest genius will never be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources…….
For the Love of a Few Golden Sentences
What is genius but the faculty of seizing and turning to account everything that strikes us? … The greatest genius will never be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources…….
What I Can Use: Notes on Waldman and Birman’s Civil Disobediences
“Emerson was not a systematic reader, but he had a genius for skimming and a comprehensive system for taking notes…. He read rapidly, looking for what he could use.” p. 67 “He read widely in…
Commonplace Books
From the Be in Love with Yr Life class, Annie Kratzmeyer was telling me about the commonplace notebooks she fills. Here’s a page of one of mine. What Emerson kept, and what he recommended enthusiastically…
Those Blasts of a Trumpet
I’ve recently finished reading Robert Richardson’s engrossing biography, Emerson: The Mind on Fire. The author regularly highlights the exuberant reading Emerson did throughout his life. Robertson not only identifies authors and titles of what Emerson…
Thesis 11, Still
One reader of an early draft of Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine Wrote me with characteristic candor: “Damn you! It fucking hurt to read this book And thank you! It was the final push I…
Try Giving Yourself Away
Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. –Ralph Waldo Emerson In the late 1940s David Dunn wrote an article The reader response was overwhelming…