Yaele DiPlacido-Eastman questioned my title, which includes the trigger word–for someone who grew up in the Soviet Union–”comrades.” My choice of title stems not from apparatchiks of Stalinist oppression but from one of America’s greatest…
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…
Milosz’s ABC’s Translated from the Polish by Madeline G. Levine Listening last night to Natalie Long talking about Poland and mentioning Czeslaw Milosz reminded me of reading his ABC’s back in 2001. Around that time…
Gary Snyder, The Real Work: Interviews & Talks 1964-1979 I first learned of Gary Snyder in fictionalized form as the hero Japhy Ryder in Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums. Therein, as in real life, the…
The unexamined life is not worth living. —Socrates I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it. —Alice Walker Tell me, what is…
Z studied with meIn a Social Justice class fall 2007 I learned that semesterHow much Z loved poetry They kept a notebook of new wordsThey’d come across and then make the words a part of…
If you’ve ever … put your faith in a guru traveled to India and were blown away and never took a single drug recited a mantram throughout the day memorized part of chapter 2 of…
I reminded you of Whitman, told you to read him BEFORE the morning news avalanche of expected accounts of horrific rapacities and Bush Administration deceptions and delusions, because we are larger, better than I thought;…
My friend is assiduous in learning Russian Her son and daughter-in-law reside in Saint Petersburg She’s headed there in May She tells me she needs to get a book of Pushkin Memorize some of his…
July 2005 It was one month ago that I began to read Whitman in earnest, and, while I still have far to go in prose and poetry, an impression has been made, a fire has…