Waking At 3am, William Stafford Even in the cave of the night when you wake and are free and lonely, neglected by others, discarded, loved only by what doesn’t matter–even in that big room no one can see, you push with your eyes till forever comes in its twisted figure eight and lies down in [...]
I had to read this three times to understand how I understood it implicitly on my first try. Crush, Ada Limón Maybe my limbs are made mostly for decoration, like the way I feel about persimmons. You can’t really eat them. Or you wouldn’t want to. If you grab the soft skin with your fist [...]
At least once every day, I’m thinking about Dorothy Parker. This week I’m also thinking about Cheever. Reading a man’s biography will have that affect. Very well crafted biography, by the way. Naturally, I’m also flipping back and forth between his stories on the side and I’m just effervescent with the thrill of all this [...]
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Today you may call me DeLilah, I’m feeling like the midnight dj. What are your favorite love songs? I think I’m always being swept up by various ones whether en flagrante delicto or not, but there are two that always make me die in their simplicity, the way they feel open and mysterious and to [...]
This is by far my favorite poem by him. I will read it again every month or so and feel myself come to understand something closer to the heart each time. My Father’s Wedding, Robert Bly 1924Today, lonely for my father, I saw a log, or branch, long, bent, ragged, bark gone. I felt lonely [...]
by RilkeI am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough to make every hour holy. I am too small in the world, and yet not tiny enough just to stand before you like a thing, dark and shrewd. I want my will, and I want to be with my will as it [...]
At many times I feel like I cant just be myself because I feel that my real self is just an embarrassment to people and disrespectful. For instance when I am having a great time I usually will show it by being loud and wild. When we go bowling when I am doing really good. [...]
One of the most sublime moments in art is silence. It’s rare, to articulate open space while at the same time filling it; how do you push a narrative forward while standing absolutely still? It’s a matter of timing, really. And of restraint. Art that cares for slowness feels like the intake of breath. Sometimes, [...]
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I’m taking a class at Brown this semester (unfortunately not two). My professor has good taste. We read this and I looked around and I wondered if the other women in the class, mostly older than me, were shaking their heads out of sympathy or pity. I felt bad that I am a perennial infant [...]
One of my favorites. Touch Me, Stanley Kunitz Summer is late, my heart. Words plucked out of the air some forty years ago when I was wild with love and torn almost in two scatter like leaves this night of whistling wind and rain. It is my heart that’s late, it is my song that’s [...]
It always sort of bummed me out that I was not a poet. In fact, I resented it so much, I used to hate poetry, and made a deliberate effort to not understand it. Now I think of it as the most direct way of speaking, of communicating; the most beautiful. A good poem pulls [...]
Among Chuan-tzu’s many skills, he was an expert draftsman. The king asked him to draw a crab. Chuang-tzu replied that he needed five years, a country house, and twelve servants. Five years later the drawing was still not begun. “I need another five years,” said Chuang-tzu. The king granted them. At the end of these [...]
As opposed to Neruda’s sadness, here is sour Phil. Aubade by Larkin I work all day, and get half-drunk at night. Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. In time the curtain-edges will grow light. Till then I see what’s really always there: Unresting death, a whole day nearer now, Making all thought impossible [...]
I wrote this down in an old journal of mine. It’s from an interview with Michael Hurley. I think it’s perfect. I wandered in NYC and hung out in the village. I was interested in Beatniks because they didn’t have to go to school and got to drink wine and they were cool. After awhile, [...]
I read this story, Customer of Size, the other day from the last issue of Carve Magazine. It’s by Mary Jones. It humanizes a moment which most people don’t give much thought to. I always hear so much chatter about fat people like they’re another, lesser species, abstract persons “punished” for abstract crimes. The sort [...]
The other day I went to that reading, and it was wonderful. Ada Books is, first of all, an exquisitely curated little bookstore with a pleasing and simple aesthetic. Also, I stole a very cushy chair while everyone else sat on wooden ones because I am apparently a real princess. I say apparently like this [...]
William Walsh is brilliant. Here, let me show you: Girls like you aren’t born until highschool. Born atsixteen years old. You give birth to yourself, youglamorous creature, you beautiful girl. But you’reso young. Baby woman. You just startedmenstruating. You like it. You like menstruating—you are that young. Last week your pee-pee hadbeen an inert slit. [...]