Categories
Archives
-
-
-
-
Recent Posts
- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- “I don’t represent anything.” — Liz Phair
- “I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
- “Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan
- “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- “All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” — Charlie Chaplin
- “As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.” — Reed Morano
- “Even though I’m writing about very dark material, it still feels like an escape hatch.” — Olivia Laing
- “It’s just one of the mysteries of filmmaking that sometimes you do something that you don’t even think it’s important, then it turns out to be.” — Lili Horvát
- “Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella
Recent Comments
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Scott Abraham on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Scott Abraham on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on March 2026 Snapshots
- sheila on “I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
- Jessie on March 2026 Snapshots
- Helen Erwin Schinske on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Maddy on “I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
- sheila on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Helen Erwin Schinske on “To me, music is no joke and it’s not for sale.” — Ian MacKaye
- Joseph Pedulla on Susan Hayward Sleeps Raw
- sheila on “For I am of the seed of the WELCH WOMAN and speak the truth from my heart.” — Christopher Smart
- P Nickel on “The realization of ignorance is the first act of knowing.” — Jean Toomer
- Melissa Sutherland on “For I am of the seed of the WELCH WOMAN and speak the truth from my heart.” — Christopher Smart
- Bryce on The Books: “Nine Stories”- ‘The Laughing Man’ (J.D. Salinger)
-
Tag Archives: Michael Schmidt
“Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan
”I’ve always been much influenced by the 17th-century metaphysical poets like Donne, and especially Henry Vaughan.” — Philip K. Dick It’s Henry Vaughan’s birthday today. I was just thinking the other day about how I encountered certain famous writers in … Continue reading
“For I am of the seed of the WELCH WOMAN and speak the truth from my heart.” — Christopher Smart
“For in my nature I quested for beauty, but God, God hath sent me to sea for pearls.” — Christopher Smart, from “Jubilate Agno” Christopher Smart, born on this day in 1722, spent over 10 years of his life locked … Continue reading
“Art indeed is long, but life is short.” — Metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell
“Andrew Marvell spans three ages like a delicate but serviceable bridge. The first length spans Charles I’s reign and fall, the second spans the Commonwealth, the third the Restoration.” — Michael Schmidt, Lives of the Poets It’s his birthday today. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, England, Harold Bloom, John Aubrey, Michael Schmidt, poetry, politics, Six Centuries of Great Poetry, T.S. Eliot
Leave a comment
“Attention equals Life.” — Frank O’Hara
“I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.” – poet Frank O’Hara It’s his birthday today. First up: I launched my column at Film Comment with a piece about American poet Frank O’Hara’s love of … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Elizabeth Bishop, Frank O'Hara, Joan Acocella, Lana Turner, Michael Schmidt
18 Comments
“Too many poets delude themselves by thinking the mind is dangerous and must be left out. Well, the mind is dangerous, and must be left in.” — Robert Frost
“[The poem] begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life–not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Elizabeth Bishop, Ezra Pound, Harold Bloom, Marianne Moore, Michael Schmidt, poetry, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens
5 Comments
“I did not begin to write poetry in earnest until the really emotional part of my life was over.” — poet A.E. Housman
OUCH. He was born in 1859 and he died in 1936. His generation saw so much change it boggles the mind, and I say that as a member of a generation who grew up sans internet – I didn’t get … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged England, George Orwell, Harold Bloom, Hugh MacDiarmid, Lanford Wilson, Michael Schmidt, Philip Larkin, poetry, William Faulkner
1 Comment
“What a writer asks of his reader is not so much to like as to listen.” — poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“He suffered excessive popularity; he has now suffered three quarters of a century of critical neglect.” – Michael Schmidt, Lives of the Poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on this day in 1807, in Portland, Maine. He was the first … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Harold Bloom, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, L.M. Montgomery, Michael Schmidt, Paul Revere, poetry, Walt Whitman
6 Comments
“Never write from your head; write from your cock.” — Wystan Hugh Auden
W.H. Auden was born on this day in York, England, 1907. I first encountered Auden in my “Humanities” class, senior year in high school. I got a lot out of that class, and I remember we analyzed Auden’s famous most-anthologized … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, England, George Orwell, Hamlet, Harold Bloom, Hugh MacDiarmid, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord Tennyson, Louis MacNeice, Marianne Moore, Michael Schmidt, Philip Larkin, poetry, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden, William Shakespeare
23 Comments