The Irresistible Power of Natural Powers
Having recently perused Jim Forest’s biography and memoir of Dan Berrigan (Playing in the Lions’ Den), I returned to Berrigan’s collection of poems, And the Risen Bread. If I can find five poems in such…
Tag: The Brothers Karamazov
A Late Night Raid on Victor Terras’s A Karamazov Companion: Commentary on the Genesis, Language, and Style of Dostoevsky’s Novel/1
for Cami “I love Russia, Aliosha, I love the Russian God, though I am a scoundrel myself.” –Dmitry Karamazov So, maybe you’ve already taken the plunge back in Wisconsin, and are now immersed in “A…
In Praise of Sentimental Slop
Back in the late 90s, when the spring semester ended, and the grades had been turned in, I’d treat myself with another reading of Dostoevsky’s magisterial The Brothers Karamazov. I’ve lost track of how many…
Learning by Heart, the Joy of Music, and the Power of the Prophetic
Dear Lauren, I received your letter today about the online Good News class and your hand-written adaptation of Kipling’s famous poem. The fact that you have had “If” as a companion in your work and…
On Susan Sontag, Trip to Hanoi
Journal, July 2005 Susan Sontag spent two weeks in North Vietnam in 1968, and wrote 90 pages about her experiences. (Perhaps I will cull from those notebooks I kept in Gaza and the West Bank…
On Book Six of The Brothers Karamazov
For Cab Yau Perhaps these will speak to you as we reconsider Dostoevsky’s masterpiece… “where we read truly, where the experience is to be that of meaning, we do so as if the text (the…
Some of What’s Not on Your CV
Your allusive ode to your soul-pal (“I am because you are”) That incendiary haiku you gave to Mona on the porch What prompted your most intense torrent of tears That photo of the blissed-out Hindu…
Lineage
From Markel to Zinovy From Zinovy to Alyosha From Alyosha to Kolya From Kolya to Cab From Cab to me From me to Eileen From Eileen to Adah From Adah to a world filled with…
Makes Me Happy
To receive a vivid piece of writing (poem, rant, trans-genre) from a friend and then get permission to share it with others who are adept at appreciation To bike in Forest Park, run up Art…
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,…