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- June 28, 1914: “But if ever a man went anywhere of his own free will, Franz Ferdinand went to Sarajevo.”
- “I know why the caged bird sings, ah me…” — poet Paul Laurence Dunbar
- “[Poetry is] a way of trying to come to peace with the world.” — poet Lucille Clifton
- “The films that I love are very straightforward stories, like really old-fashioned stuff.” — Paul Thomas Anderson
- A Personal Memory: or: What Dog Day Afternoon Means to Me
- Happy Birthday, Hediyeh Tehrani
- “All I actually wanted was for my work to be useful.”–Claudius Afolabi Siffre
- “I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts.” — George Orwell
- “People are always asking me if I thought Elvis was a handsome man and my answer is ‘I am not blind you know’!” — Millie Kirkham
- Physical Media Booklet Essay: The Podcast
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Category Archives: Books
“I know why the caged bird sings, ah me…” — poet Paul Laurence Dunbar
It’s the birthday of poet/novelist/playwright/editor Paul Laurence Dunbar. The child of freed slaves, he was publishing poetry when he was still a teenager, and went on to be the first Black American writer who gained an international reputation. He was … Continue reading
“[Poetry is] a way of trying to come to peace with the world.” — poet Lucille Clifton
It’s her birthday today. Rita Dove said of Lucille Clifton’s body of work: In contrast to much of the poetry being written today—-intellectualized lyricism characterized by an application of inductive thought to unusual images—-Lucille Clifton’s poems are compact and self-sufficient…Her … Continue reading
“I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts.” — George Orwell
Orwell was born on this day. When Animal Farm was released in a new edition, Christopher Hitchens wrote specifically about the quote from Orwell shown in the title above. Very few people can “face unpleasant facts”. Hitchens: A commissar who … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged 1984, Animal Farm, dystopia, England, essays, George Orwell, nonfiction, politics, Russia, war
7 Comments
“And the role of the fatal chorus / I agree to take on” — Anna Akhmatova
“This I pray at your liturgy After so many tormented days, So that the stormcloud over darkened Russia Might become a cloud of glorious rays.” — Anna Akhmatova, “Prayer” Anna Akhmatova – born Anna Andreyevna Gorenko on this day – … Continue reading
“I like variety in poetry. I love how it comes in so many guises. As rock lyric, as rap, as note on a fridge.” — Paul Muldoon
“I’m very much against expressing a categorical view of the world. I hope I can continue to discover something, and not to underline or bolster up what I already know.” – Paul Muldoon It’s his birthday today. Like Seamus Heaney … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Belfast, Ireland, Irish poetry, Michael Schmidt, Paul Muldoon, poetry, Seamus Heaney
2 Comments
“There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it.” — James Weldon Johnson
“Nothing will do more to change that mental attitude and raise his status than a demonstration of intellectual parity by the Negro through the production of literature and art.” – James Weldon Johnson, preface to The Book of American Negro … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Music, On This Day, writers
Tagged Harlem Renaissance, James Weldon Johnson, poetry
4 Comments
Bloomsday past and present
For my Substack, I wrote about the Bloomsday celebration I’ve been going to (more or less) for 20 years, and my history with the book, and Dad, and lovable finance bro, and meeting people where the sole bond is knowing … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, Personal
Tagged Bloomsday, family, newsletter, Ulysses
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“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.” — William Faulkner
Happy Bloomsday to those who celebrate. I’ve been celebrating Bloomsday for 20 years, in the real world, and here on my site. If you’ve been visiting here for any length of time, you know this. There are too many posts … Continue reading
“That is no country for old men.” — William Butler Yeats
“I thought we might bring the halves together if we had a national literature that made Ireland beautiful in the memory, and yet had been freed of provincialism by an exacting criticism, a European pose.” — W.B. Yeats William Butler … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Algernon Charles Swinburne, Camille Paglia, Edmund Spenser, Elizabeth Bishop, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, Ireland, Irish poetry, Jeanette Winterson, John Millington Synge, Jonathan Swift, Louis MacNeice, Maud Gonne, Michael Schmidt, Philip Larkin, poetry, Rebecca West, Richard Ellmann, Seamus Heaney, T.S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, Ulysses, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden
15 Comments
“I am the most famous unknown of the century.” — Djuna Barnes
When Barnes called herself a “famous unknown” she may have been being elliptical or ironic, or she may have been just telling it like it is. Her writing didn’t have literal chronological through-lines and some readers found it challenging. So … Continue reading