-
Recent Posts
- “Rock n’ roll! It’s the music of puberty.” — Suzi Quatro
- “Literature is the written expression of revolt against expected things.” Happy Birthday to the least happy man ever, Thomas Hardy
- “I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.” – Happy Birthday, Marilyn Monroe
- “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- “In my films I always wanted to make people see deeply. I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.” — Agnès Varda
- “If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.” — poet Countee Cullen
- Remembering, Honoring
- It’s the birthday of composer György Ligeti
- “Only the bad directors tell you how to read a line, how to define your character. The good ones let you do your job.” — Carroll Baker
- Review: Close to Vermeer (2023)
Recent Comments
- Justine Valinotti on R.I.P. Tina Turner
- sheila on “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- Joe Markley on “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- sheila on “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- sheila on “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- Joe Markley on “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- bill savoy on The Books: “The Bridge Across Forever” (Richard Bach)
- sheila on Snapshots
- sheila on R.I.P. Tina Turner
- sheila on R.I.P. Tina Turner
- sheila on Rest with Satan, Kenneth Anger
- Desirae on Rest with Satan, Kenneth Anger
- Desirae on R.I.P. Tina Turner
- Kristen Westergaard on R.I.P. Tina Turner
- Barb on Snapshots
- Lyrie on Snapshots
- Barb on Snapshots
- Lyrie on Snapshots
- Lyrie on Snapshots
- Lyrie on “My films are about ideals that clash with the world. Every time it’s a man in the lead, they have forgotten about the ideals. And every time it’s a woman in the lead, they take the ideals all the way.” — Lars von Trier
Categories
Archives
-
FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM
Tag Archives: Alexander Pope
“When I aim at praise, they say I bite.” — Alexander Pope
How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! -— Alexander Pope, from “Eloisa to Abelard” Alexander Pope was born on this day in 1688. He was so huge … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, writers
Tagged Alexander Pope, Allen Ginsberg, Camille Paglia, Christopher Smart, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Eminem, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, H.L. Mencken, Jonathan Swift, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, poetry, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Jefferson, William Blake, William Wordsworth
2 Comments
“Thy soul was like a Star and dwelt apart” — William Wordsworth on John Milton
Milton was born on this day in 1608. Although he left Oxford without completing his degree, he remained a thinker, a propagandist/pamphleteer, a scholar till the end of his days. The isolated poet, focused on self and personal emotion, would … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Alexander Pope, Camille Paglia, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Bishop, England, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, John Aubrey, John Dryden, John Milton, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Paradise Lost, poetry, Robert Burns, Robert Graves, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, W.H. Auden, Walter Savage Landor, William Blake, William Carlos Williams, William Wordsworth
12 Comments
“I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals.” — poet/writer/hater Jonathan Swift
“[He is] the most vigorous hater we’ve ever had in our literature.” — Edgell Rickword We’re not supposed to “hate”. “Hate” calls to mind tiki torches. Or “hate crimes.” But there is a productive kind of hate. A galvanizing hate. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Alexander Pope, Charlotte Bronte, Dr. Samuel Johnson, fiction, Gulliver's Travels, H.L. Mencken, Ireland, Irish poetry, Jane Eyre, Jonathan Swift, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Rebecca West, Robert Graves, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats
12 Comments
“Language most shows a man. Speak that I may see thee.” — Ben Jonson
“O rare Benn Johnson.” — Jonson’s incorrectly-spelled epitaph in Westminster Abbey It’s his birthday today. Ben Jonson did everything. Plays, poems, satires, elegies, epigrams. His talent was wide and flexible. Everything he wrote feels inevitable. However, as Michael Schmidt writes … Continue reading
Year in Review: Shooting My Mouth Off in 2020, Part 2
Here’s part 1, a list of things I’ve written for other outlets. This list, then, is a hodge-podge of the things I’ve written here this year. Anyone familiar with this joint knows that I do tribute posts for people’s birthdays. … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Movies, Music, Personal, writers
Tagged A. E. Housman, Alexander Pope, Andrew Marvell, Anna Karina, Anne Spencer, Austin Clarke, Ballets Russes, baseball, Basil Bunting, dance, Eminem, England, France, Frances Farmer, friends, Harlem Renaissance, Hediyeh Tehrani, Hope, Iranian film, Irish poetry, John Donne, Melvin B. Tolson, Nick Tosches, Nijinsky, Philip Larkin, poetry, Poland, Rhode Island, Robert Frost, Romania, Scott Walker, Stanley Kubrick, women directors, year in writing
Leave a comment