Something happens when we face the truth about ourselves. For one thing, there is no room for pomposity, arrogance, or self-absorption. More than one person has pointed out how closely conjoined “humility” is with “humor.” A sense of humor, like a true sense of humility, involves ruthless honesty about who we are, without disguise or […]
Interior Space Deep in the Human Heart
Early on in my art education, a professor told me a parable I have never forgotten. Long ago, an emperor in China loved ducks. Inordinately. His passion was so overwhelming that he called forth the greatest artist and calligrapher in his kingdom and made his request: I want you to create the ultimate image of […]
Louise Bogan: A Poet’s Poet
On a roll here, with another female poet… I was reminded recently by friend and poet Dean J. Baker of the poet Louise Bogan. (One of her poems was posted here on April 4, 2008.) Bogan (1897-1970) grew up in mill towns in Maine. After a year at Boston University and an unhappy early marriage. […]
Tribeswoman
May Swenson (1913-1989) was born in Logan Utah to a Swedish immigrant Mormon family, the eldest of ten children. After finishing college at Utah State University, she moved East, teaching at Bryn Mawr and several other universities. Well respected as a poet during her lifetime, she is known for her proclivity to closely align nature […]
Phenomenal Presence: Robert Irwin
Robert Irwin The books stacked by my bed may appear to be pliantly passive, but don’t be fooled: the daily jostling that rotates one to the top spot is a highly competitive challenge. Feelings have been hurt, I can sense it, when that slim volume of finely chiseled poetry gets usurped by, dare I say […]
Bio Luminescence and Other Wonders
The Ted site…I could spend days there. Billed as a collection of “inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers,” the range of topics offered is staggering. This video of David Gallo is a spectacular 5 minute exploration of “underwater astonishments.” Wow. I’ve watched it three times and I’m still not done: David Gallo […]
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Luce Irigaray: Letting Be Transcendence
I am blessed with thoughtful, provocative and intelligent friends. And because this blog deals with the inchoate world where creativity occurs, I am particularly grateful for the ongoing inflow of ideas, insights, parallelisms, wisdom. Martin Dickinson, the poet whose poem about Sugimoto’s Sea of Japan photographs I posted here on June 25, also writes book […]
Hafiz: Tongue of the Invisible
Still under the spell of my friend Andrew’s message to me yesterday (see below), I’ve been thinking about the ecstatic poets, particularly the Sufi mystics—Rumi, Kabir, Omar Khayyam and my favorite, Hafiz. Hafiz, a 14th century Sufi poet from Persia, writes about longing for union with the divine. His work explores the nature of spiritual […]
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Translucent Awareness
The most profound shift I have had in weeks: Reading the weekly email message from my friend Andrew. Fresh from a journey to Peru under the tutelage of his shaman Don Diego, his message to me this morning transmutated some part of his “beyond language” experience into a form I could breathe into and recognize […]
The Schmooze Factor
One of my favorite bloggers is G, the genius behind Writer Reading. A few days ago she posted an extremely thought-provoking piece called Are Writers Ever Really Loners? that I have been mulling over ever since. She probes the often disruptive relationship between the “solitary” act of writing and the role of interacting with the […]