Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Friday, July 19, 2024
HAIDUN
http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/haibun.htm
The haibun is prose (or a prose poem) interleaved with one or more haiku:
The prose is not an explanation of the haiku.
The haiku is not a linear continuation of the prose.
Make each word count in the prose text, as in a prose poem.
Compact micro-haibun limit the prose text, such as to 20-to-180 words. Most commonly only one haiku is included, placed after the prose, and serving as a climax or epiphany to what came before.
Many haibun include more than one haiku and longer text than the above range, as long as the resulting work is strong enough.
The juxtaposition of prose and haiku is important.
The prose should add to the depth with which we experience the haiku.
The haiku should add meaning to the prose.
You could think about getting some "air" (as the skate-boarders and snow-boarders say) between the prose and the haiku.
Robert D. Wilson, editor of the e-magazine Simply Haiku, includes these features for a haibun:
"a linked form. The link is between narrative, prose sections and one or more haiku."
wide range of styles and content.
minimal repetition of words and phrases; "what is written is tightly constructed".
strong haiku that can stand alone as poetry.
"Haiku ... relate to previous prose sections yet not be an extension of the prose. The oblique but relevant association between haiku and prose is the defining moment of the haibun. ... The haiku link offers readers a springboard to multiple, and often unexpected, meanings."The haibun is prose (or a prose poem) interleaved with one or more haiku:
The prose is not an explanation of the haiku.
The haiku is not a linear continuation of the prose.
Make each word count in the prose text, as in a prose poem.
Compact micro-haibun limit the prose text, such as to 20-to-180 words. Most commonly only one haiku is included, placed after the prose, and serving as a climax or epiphany to what came before.
Many haibun include more than one haiku and longer text than the above range, as long as the resulting work is strong enough.
The juxtaposition of prose and haiku is important.
The prose should add to the depth with which we experience the haiku.
The haiku should add meaning to the prose.
You could think about getting some "air" (as the skate-boarders and snow-boarders say) between the prose and the haiku.
Robert D. Wilson, editor of the e-magazine Simply Haiku, includes these features for a haibun:
"a linked form. The link is between narrative, prose sections and one or more haiku."
wide range of styles and content.
minimal repetition of words and phrases; "what is written is tightly constructed".
strong haiku that can stand alone as poetry.
"Haiku ... relate to previous prose sections yet not be an extension of the prose. The oblique but relevant association between haiku and prose is the defining moment of the haibun. ... The haiku link offers readers a springboard to multiple, and often unexpected, meanings."
Sunday, July 14, 2024
Sarah Hall's BURNTCOAT
p39
There is art, the item, or the concept. And there is the story of art, which is not its interpretation, its meaning.
p110
It's all art, even thought, everything is.
Saturday, June 15, 2024
Saturday, May 11, 2024
AI web page on bibliotherapy?
Bibliotherapy: A Four-Stage Process
In bibliotherapy, participants are lead through a four-stage process of identification, catharsis, insight, and universalization with a character or theme in a story. I’ve also heard it described as a four-stage process of recognition, examination, juxtaposition, and self-application. With some analyzation, you can probably see the similarities behind these two schools of thought regarding the process. For example, identifying (or recognizing) yourself in a character describes a similar internal event.
1. Identification/Recognition
Have you ever been reading ardently for a while when suddenly an event in the plot or a character’s remark “strikes a chord,” causing you to pause and reflect on your own life? (I personally spend half of my time reading staring off into space.) At the moment you pause, you become aware of something about yourself or about life that has always been there but never been articulated thoroughly. During such a moment you are making a text-to-self connection (and you are entering the first stage of bibliotherapy).
2. Catharsis/Examination
The word “catharsis” is Greek for “cleansing.” In this step, we arouse and release what has been suppressed after identifying it. For example, we often read, watch movies, and tell our own stories because we feel better afterward (even under paradoxical conditions, such as when there is an ending we don’t agree with). Even if the story itself doesn’t spark an emotional release, sometimes dialogue with others can serve this purpose. Our spontaneous responses (and the spontaneous responses of others around us) can reveal a lot. We often use storylines to release strong reactions to previously ambiguous issues.
3. Insight/Juxtaposition
Without guidance, a lot of us naturally stop the bibliotherapeutic process after identification and emotional release. (Well, the movie is over. Back to the dishes…)
Entering the stage of juxtaposition takes mental effort because it involves putting two concepts (or two storylines - your life and the life of a character) side by side in order to compare and contrast them. If taking on this task, it’s important to conduct it in an environment that encourages creative thinking (aka - not with pessimists). If role-models for behavior are possible in the characters, this should be discussed with an openminded person (or group of people) in a situation designed to stimulate original thinking, original connections, and playful attitudes. Creative writing activities can be assigned to solidify new understandings.
4. Universalization/Self-Application
If you find yourself able to integrate insights from the first three steps into your life (while truly sensing the human condition at work in your own story and in your own problems), you have successfully used the power of abstract thought to make bibliotherapy effective. If you take it further to face challenges with awe, cultivate an accurate sense of self-importance, and garner a new level of critical examination towards yourself and the outer world, the story choice and your participation in the reflection are a gift that will keep on giving.
Keep in mind, this can take months or years. Continual reflection and identity formation may develop as your mind wanders back to the story time and time again. Ultimately, you can use the process repeatedly to dive into yourself (while healthily distancing yourself from your life at the same time).
Final Clarifications
The four-stage process mentioned above is what makes bibliotherapy distinct from regular guided reading groups and book clubs. Educational professionals who have studied the process implement bibliotherapy in small group settings.
Sunday, February 18, 2024
Saturday, February 17, 2024
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
Joanna Biggs A LIFE OF ONE'S OWN
Nine Women Writers Begin Again
Biggs has truly used reading as a way to heal. In the ideal bibliotherapeutic scenario, she has read, processed and re-envisioned herself in light of her reading experience.
Some quotes. (Reading digitally allows for snapshots of pages ut page numbers are more or less irrelevant given the size of typeface as well as the device can change pagination.)
Revisiting a book this way is a shortcut, some might sight a cheat, but I see it as another lifehack in this brave new digital frontier. Yea, we may eventually be faced with fallout, but in the meantime, let's enjoy all the ways it enhances our experience.
Authors explored:
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
George Elliot
Zora Neale Hurston
Virginia Woolf
Simone de Beauvoir
Sylvia Plath
Toni Morrison
Elena Ferrante
and the author makes nine : )
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
BookTherapy
$50 online certificate?
https://www.booktherapy.io/en-us/collections/online-bibliotherapy-courses/products/bibliotherapy-literature-and-mental-health?goal=0_ed359f248a-8dad64535a-357157300&mc_cid=8dad64535a&mc_eid=2dd2dc4883
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Pure Gold
In his classic bibliotherapy treatise, THE STORY SPECIES, Joseph Gold says in his Appendix II:
Literature is the most important tool in the kit for constructing identy and building the whole story that connects the "I" to the "not-I" across space and time...but writing does something that cannot be achieved in any other way.
Literature is a major source of building materials...(re)construction is how writing functions in the healing process (because) the brain cannot process the reading of material we have written in the same way as it processes the writing of the material in the first place: Outside-in is not the same to brains as Inside-out.
Language, as an organizing principle, produces the controlling activity experienced in story formation by the writer. Writing creates a brain association that was not there before. We feel better when we move emotion to our language center, where we can name and control it. Writing is being seen and heard, and even though we are the one who has written, we must decode and interpret the writing. When we write about how we feel, we are both learning and clarifying how we feel. Writing is an exercise in self-efficacy and self-knowledge.
Health and balance require us to move away from overwhelming emotions toward organized objective reality. Feelings converted into language, establish order and control.
Through the medium of lanuguage, chaos and confusion is tamed and can be used as an informative, manageable reference tool.
How does writing therapy work?
1. Emotion moves between different areas of the brain--subjective versus objective--as it becomes language.
2. Objectivity creates a sense of "otherness" and provides distance necessary for critical analysis of experience.
3. Recording emotions frees us from carrying the sometimes overwhelming load of their chaotic influence, through the writing process, thus acknowledging and releasing them as history.
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Monday, May 01, 2023
Wednesday, February 22, 2023
Bibliotherapy? OK...sure, why not.
https://www.capegazette.com/article/bibliotherapy-sessions-start-march-9/254097
Utilizing a self-help book is not what I normally think of when I think about bibliotherapy, but sure, could be.
This group is charging $175 for four sessions where they will be reading:
Thich Nhat Hahn’s “Peace is Every Step: The Path to Mindfulness in Everyday Life.”
It's being offerred by a Delaware wellness organization whose intentions are good. Using self-help books as bibliotherapy,
as opposed to using literature, has been proved once again to be more digestible by the mainstream.
Or maybe, people are as likely to want to read a work of literature for their health as they are to want
to eat their vegetables.
Saturday, February 11, 2023
Friday, January 27, 2023
Reading Wallace Stevens: The Palm at the End of the Mind
I.
Look in the terrible mirror of the sky.
Oh, bend against the invisible and lean
To symbols of descending night; and search
The glare of revelations going by!
Dreaming feet
Mythy mind
Music is feeling, not sound
In witching chords.
Whispered refrains
Like willows swept by rain.
Death is the mother of beauty; from her,
Alone, comes fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires.
She searched
The touch of springs,
And found
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed,
For so much melody.
Upon the bank, she stood
In the cool
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves,
The dew
Of old devotions.
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical.
Beauty is momentary in the mind--
The fitful tracing of a portal;
In the flesh, immortal.
The body dies; the body's beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminable flowing.
The sun ... sets ... pacing
Death, ... knowing
Grieves.
Opening roses
The mind supposes
Floating colors;
Closes.
Noon a turning--
a Burning
a Yearning
For endless summer.
Changing autumn mellows
Moons glance
When night comes
Coloring
The cry of peacocks.
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing.
And it was going to snow.
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes.
I was of three minds:
Three blackbirds
In a tree.
I know a blackbird
Is involved
In what I know.
Friday, January 13, 2023
Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow...
https://www.amazon.com/Tomorrow-novel-Gabrielle-Zevin/dp/0593321200/ref=asc_df_0593321200?tag=bngsmtphsnus-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80058314545423&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=m&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583657839528169&psc=1
So many things I enjoyed while reading...
learned about William Morris design known as "the Strawberry Thief."
and some cool quotes to give you a taste 🍓...
"Love is both a constant and a variant at the same time."
"Dead was OK."
"You can watch if you want. I'm going to play until the end of this life."
"There is no purity in art."
And discovered:
Tsuguharu Foujita, artist
and
Terry Riley, composer
https://youtu.be/aX96z7AuICs
Monday, December 12, 2022
Tuesday, December 06, 2022
Monday, October 24, 2022
Thursday, October 20, 2022
Friday, September 09, 2022
Tuesday, July 26, 2022
most last lines
https://www.flavorwire.com/167171/famous-last-words-our-20-favorite-final-lines-in-literature
more last lines
https://www.flavorwire.com/167171/famous-last-words-our-20-favorite-final-lines-in-literature
last lines
https://www.flavorwire.com/167171/famous-last-words-our-20-favorite-final-lines-in-literature
Friday, July 15, 2022
Find eBook Resources mostly with annual fee
https://www.aworldadventurebybook.com/blog/libraries-with-non-resident-borrowing-privileges
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Friday, May 20, 2022
Roethke's Waking Personal Edit
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
We think by feeling what there is to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
What falls away is always. And is near.
To you and me; so take the lively air,
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I feel I think I learn I go I fall I hear
My sleep and fear the more the end can care
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
THE SENTENCE
Louise Erdrich's novel is an ideal bilbliotherapeutic experience on so many levels. As a post pandemic, post Rump reader (though honestly, it's hard to know how post), I am moved by the depictions of emotional shock and confusion. Having felt those same things so recently personally, while reading, I felt catharsis bubbling up like peroxide from an infected wound.
The year we had our faces shoved into unspeakable fascist reality captured on cell phones and could not look away... The year I Can`t Breathe was heart- stoppingly impressed in our minds and our consciousness was forever changed.
However, Erdrich doesn't stop at social awareness for these two overwhelming issues alone, rather they are presented as an aside almost, as backdrop to issues that are all part of the sociological mess embroiled in the summer Minneapolis burdened with its rascist/colonial history.
So much to say about the rightness of this book for helping us process the fear, anger, despair but instead I just encourage all to read it for yourselves instead of my rambling review as diatribe.
As a (retired) librarian and obsessive/compulsive reader : ), I soaked up book and author referals sprinkled throughout gleefully and feel they need sharing as widely and indiscriminately as possible.
Reading can help us work through our tumultuous histories, both cultural and personal. We are all connected on the space time continuum. We rise and fall as one magnificently complex living organism sharing our breath as one inhalation/exhalation until our spirit is free.
Saturday, February 19, 2022
Saturday, December 25, 2021
Tuesday, December 21, 2021
Sunday, November 21, 2021
Saturday, October 09, 2021
Sunday, September 26, 2021
Monday, August 30, 2021
Thursday, July 15, 2021
Rabbits by Terry Miles
Recommended by Cory Doctorow, loved discovering a new author and one also born in Sakatchewan. Add to that, the setting for the novel is right here in the neighborhood, main character born in Olympia with action in and around Seattle.
Gaming history melds into conspiracy theory with a sprinkling of quantum philosophy for good measure, RABBITS is flush with questing portals. "Look it up" is one of my librarian favorites and prompts side search jaunts into Wikipedia and Duckduckgo while reading. Not only did it fill in informational holes I didn't even know were there but extended my novel reading time. And this was one I was in no hurry to finish while not being able to put it down.
On that note, let us review:
Baader Meinhoff Phenomenon aka Frequency Illusion
Wednesday, July 07, 2021
Poetry and Psychotherapy
https://stenenpress.com/thoughts-on-poetry/
"The very poetry and party of the universe are reflecting back in tiny versions across the tiny minds strewn on earth."
"The untranslated that must be addressed in the psyche needs relation to a human, in real time, to be actually translated."
"In other words, we are all the “reader” and the potential “writer.” We
mutually create one another’s projected shit. “It requires two minds to
think a person’s most disturbing thoughts,” Wilfred Bion said. We make
it real. We mutually transmute it. We continue its life and add to it.
We make one another eternal."
Saturday, June 19, 2021
Poetry Will Process Emotions
https://www.firstpost.com/art-and-culture/as-poetry-charts-a-pop-culture-comeback-a-look-at-how-rhyme-rhythm-and-verse-help-us-express-emotion-9702931.html
"Words contagiously move us. As neuroscientist Christian Keysers explains in The Empathic Brain..."
"Of particular interest is the role of mirror neurons.
These brain cells fire when an action is observed or performed, and
they tell us a lot about how we understand the actions of others. They
suggest understanding comes from mirroring or imitation that takes place
in the brain but is acted out or felt in the body."
Wednesday, June 09, 2021
Writers Dream
Katherine Mansfield dreams of Oscar Wilde
Vladimir Nabokov dreams of seeking butterflies with a spoon
Ernest Hemingway dreams of war. . . and also sex
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
Cinquain
https://examples.yourdictionary.com/cinquain-examples.html
Originally, Adelaide Crapsey created the form for the American cinquain with five lines. Each line is stressed in a specific way. Additionally, as the form progressed, a syllable structure was added.
Stresses Per Line
Explore the composition of each line by looking at the specific stressed and unstressed syllables.
- The first line has one stress, which was usually an iambic meter with the first syllable unstressed and the second stressed.
- Line two has two stresses.
- Line three has three stresses.
- Line four has four stresses.
- Line five has one stress.
Syllables Per Line
Following the invention of this form, writers made changes to the form and included a certain number of syllables per line.
- Line one has two syllables.
- Line two has four syllables.
- Line three has six syllables.
- Line four has eight syllables.
- Line five has two syllables.
Thursday, May 13, 2021
Philosophical Resource
Informationphilosopher.com
"Perhaps the most amazing thing about information philosophy is its discovery that abstract and immaterial information can exert an influence over concrete matter, explaining how mind can move body, how our thoughts can control our actions, deeply related to the way the quantum wave function (randomly) controls the probabilities of locating quantum particles"
Tuesday, May 04, 2021
Friday, April 30, 2021
Friday, April 23, 2021
Wednesday, April 07, 2021
Thursday, March 04, 2021
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Friday, December 11, 2020
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Monday, August 17, 2020
Friday, August 07, 2020
Friday, July 17, 2020
Monday, July 13, 2020
Monday, July 06, 2020
Friday, July 03, 2020
Robert J. Sawyer and the p-zeds
Oh wow, discovered new Robert J. Sawyer's QUANTUM NIGHT in ebook from library 💟 and am enthralled. Written soon after our last election, this theory of consciousness near future scifi novel explains much about the psychopath we have sitting in the WH, as well as his p-zed followers. Sawyer is one of the best, and Canadian to boot!
Thursday, July 02, 2020
Thursday, June 11, 2020
Sunday, June 07, 2020
Friday, June 05, 2020
Prompts from chapter headings...
Ideas for prompts from chapter headings of
This is how...
If I could...
Everywhere I turn...
Beyond the telling...
Before I die...
Being in time...
Complicated things...
How to empty...
A life of questions...
Inside the darkness...
Near the center...
Giving way...
Of course you can come...
The golden thread...
Instructions to my smaller self...
Inheriting now...
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Literary Terms
Major Literary Terms
allegory
- device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an
abstraction in
addition to the literal meaning
alliteration
- the repetition of sounds, especially initial consonant sounds in two or more
neighboring words
(e.g., "she sells sea shells")
allusion
- a direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly
known, such as an
event, book, myth, place, or work of art
ambiguity
- the multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word,
phrase, sentence, or
passage
analogy
- a similarity or comparison between two different things or the relationship
between them
antecedent
- the word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun
aphorism
- a terse statement of known authorship which expresses a general truth or
moral principle
apostrophe
- a figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or
a personified
abstraction, such as liberty or love
atmosphere
- the emotional mood created by the entirety of a literary work, established
partly by the setting
and partly by the author's choice of objects that are described
clause
- a grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb
colloquial
- the use of slang or informalities in speech or writing
conceit
- a fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or
surprising analogy between
seemingly dissimilar objects
connotation
- the nonliteral, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested
meaning
denotation
- the strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion,
attitude, or color
diction
- refering to style, diction refers to the writer's word choices, especially
with regard to their
correctness, clearness, or effectiveness
didactic
- from the Greek, literally means "teaching"
euphemism
- from the Greek for "good speech," a more agreeable or less
offensive substitute for a
generally unpleasant word or concept
extended
metaphor - a metaphor developed at great length, occurring frequently in or
throughout a work
figurative
language - writing or speech that is not intended to carry literal meaning and
is usually meant to
be imaginative and vivid
figure
of speech - a device used to produce figurative language
generic
conventions - refers to traditions for each genre
genre
- the major category into which a literary work fits (e.g., prose, poetry, and
drama)
homily
- literally "sermon", or any serious talk, speech, or lecture
providing moral or spiritual advice
hyperbole
- a figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement
imagery
- the sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion,
or represent
abstractions
infer
(inference) - to draw a reasonable conclusion from the information presented
invective
- an emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive
language
irony
- the contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant
verbal irony - words literally state the opposite of speaker's true
meaning
situational irony - events turn out the opposite of what was expected
dramatic irony - facts or events are unknown to a character but known
to the reader or audience or
other characters in work
loose
sentence - a type of sentence in which the main idea comes first, followed by
dependent grammatical
units
metaphor
- a figure of speech using implied comparison of seemingly unlike things or
the substitution of
one for the other, suggesting some similarity
metonomy
- from the Greek "changed label", the name of one object is
substituted for that of another
closely associated with it (e.g., "the White House" for the
President)
mood
- grammatically, the verbal units and a speaker's attitude (indicative,
subjunctive, imperative);
literarily, the prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a word
narrative
- the telling of a story or an account of an event or series of events
onomatopoeia
- natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words (e.g. buzz, hiss)
oxymoron
- from the Greek for "pointedly foolish," author groups apparently
contradictory terms to suggest
a paradox
paradox
- a statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense
but upon closer
inspection contains some degree of truth or validity
parallelism
- from the Greek for "beside one another," the grammatical or
rhetorical framing of words,
phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity
parody
- a work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the
specific aim of comic effect
and/or ridicule
pedantic
- an adjective that describes words, phrases, or general tone that is overly
scholarly, academic, or
bookish
periodic
sentences - a sentence that presents its central meaning in a main clause at
the end
personification
- a figure of speech in which the author presents or describes concepts,
animals, or
inanimate objects by endowing them with human attributes or emotions
point
of view - the perspective from which a story is told (first person, third
person omniscient, or third
person limited omniscient)
predicate
adjective - one type of subject complement, an adjective, group of adjectives,
or adjective clause
that follows a linking verb
predicate
nominative - another type of subject complement, a noun, group of nouns, or
noun clause that
renames the subject
prose
- genre including fiction, nonfiction, written in ordinary language
repetition - the duplication, either exact or approximate, of any
element of language
rhetoric
- from the Greek for "orator," the principles governing the art of
writing effectively, eloquently,
and persuasively
rhetorical
modes - the variety, conventions, and purposes of the major kinds of writing
(exposition explains
and analyzes information; argumentation proves validity of an idea;
description re-creates, invents,
or presents a person, place, event or action; narration tells a story
or recount an event)
sarcasm
- from the Greek for "to tear flesh," involves bitter, caustic
language that is meant to hurt or
ridicule someone or something
satire
- a work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and
conventions for reform or
ridicule
semantics
- the branch of linguistics which studies the meaning of words, their
historical and psychological
development (etymology), their connotations, and their relation to one
another
style
- an evaluation of the sum of the choices an author makes in blending diction,
syntax, figurative
language, and other literary devices;
or, classification of authors to a group and comparison of an
author to similar authors
subject
complement - the word or clause that follows a linking verb and complements,
or completes, the
subject of the sentence by either renaming it or describing it
subordinate
clause - contains a subject and verb (like all clauses) but cannot stand
alone; does not express
complete thought
syllogism
- from the Greek for "reckoning together," a deductive system of
formal logic that presents two
premises (first "major," second "minor") that
inevitably lead to a sound conclusion (e.g., All men are
mortal, Socrates is a man, Socrates is mortal)
symbol
(symbolism) - anything that represents or stands for something else (natural,
conventional, literary)
syntax
- the way an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences
theme
- the central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life
thesis
- in expository writing, the thesis statement is the sentence or group of
sentences that directly express
the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or proposition
tone
- similar to mood, describes the author's attitude toward his material, the
audience, or both
transition
- a word or phrase that links different ideas
understatement
- the ironic minimalizing of fact, presents something as less significant than
it is
wit
- intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights
Poetic Feet
U
- unaccented syllable, A - accented syllable
amphimacer
- AUA
anapest
- UUA
antibacchus
- AAU
bacchius
- UAA
chouambus
- AUUA
dactyl
- AUU
iambus
- UA
pyrrhic
- UU
spondee
- UU
trochee
- AU
breve
- symbol for unstressed syllable
macron
- a "-" symbol to divide syllables
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Wednesday, April 01, 2020
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Monday, March 23, 2020
Finding the right book...
http://inalj.com/?p=65200
These sites have been mentioned in previous posts, but the author here gives very good instructions on how to use each one.
Saturday, March 07, 2020
Thursday, March 05, 2020
Sunday, March 01, 2020
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Saturday, February 22, 2020
Friday, February 21, 2020
Monday, February 17, 2020
Friday, February 07, 2020
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Sunday, January 05, 2020
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Saturday, December 28, 2019
Friday, December 20, 2019
Friday, December 13, 2019
Bibliotherapy rec and req
https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/bibliotherapy
Nothing new here. Further instances of stressing professional psychology credentials for practicing bibliotherapists.
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Monday, December 09, 2019
Wednesday, December 04, 2019
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Monday, November 18, 2019
Sunday, November 17, 2019
FALL by Neal Stephenson
Going to try experiential/phenomenological posting:
1Urdu, Verdande, Skuld
Clothe, Lachesis, Atropos
(Look up etymology. PS Don't get hung up on phenomenology, as it's a rabbit hole.)
(NTS>Make a list of books to read together: Reading Syllabi)
Quale, qualia
Neurobiology
Moore's Law & Singularity
And now at about 200 pages in, I'm getting to the overlap of current political climate and dystopian narrative.
The Red Card
1. Speech is aggression.
2. Every utterance has a winner and a loser.
3. Curiosity is feigned.
4. Lying is performative.
5. Stupidity is power.
p.221
"Humans were biology. They lived for the dopamine rush. They could get it by putting the relevant chemicals directly into their bodies or by partaking of some click bait that had been algorithmically perfected to make brains generate the dopamine through psycho alchemy."
p.293
"Every single time a neuron fires, the brain rewires itself a little bit in response to that event. Frequently used connections get strengthened. Neglected ones atrophy. Neurons get repurposed. Things get remembered--or forgotten."
At about halfway point and feeling like there has been a bit of overreaching. Sustaining interest becoming more difficult...
p.654
"...watching Bitworld through the LVU was literally like watching grass grow."
Kind of sums up what reading about it is like at this point. I've been skimming and am beginning to wonder if the novel is going to be able to pull any kind of redeemable plot back together.
Well, I skimmed through to the end. What a disappointment. I'd say, in general, the novel is about 500 pages too long. Where was his editor while this waste of paper was taking shape?! Sad example of what happens when a reputation replaces respect for the finished project. Sheesh...
Thursday, November 07, 2019
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Monday, October 07, 2019
Sunday, October 06, 2019
Mary Karr Memoir Reading List
Adams, Henry. the education of henry adams. mont saint michel and chartres
Allende, Isabel. the sun of our days
Als, Hilton. the women
Amis, Martin. experience
Angelou, Maya. i know why the caged bird sings
Antrim, Donald. the afterlife
Arenas, Reinaldo. before night falls
Ayer, Pico. falling off the map
Saint Augustine. confessions
Baldwin, James. notes of a native son
Batuman, Elif. the possessed: adventures with Russian books and the people who read them
Beah, Ishmael. a long way gone
Beck, Edward. god underneath: spiritual memoirs of a Catholic priest
Berhard, Thomas. gathering evidence
Black Elk. black elk speaks
Blow, Charles M. fire shut up in my bones
Bourdain, Anthony. kitchen confidential
Boyett, Micha. found: a story of questions grace and everyday prayer
Brave Bird, Mary. lakota woman
Brickhouse, Jamie. dangerous when wet
Brown, Claude. manchild in the promised land
Buford, Bill. among the thugs. heat
Burgess, Anthony.
Busch, Benjamin.
Cairns, Scott.
Carr, David.
Carroll, James
Chaudhuri, Nirad C.
Chatwin, Bruce.
Chast, Roz.
Cheever, Susan
Cherry-Garrard, Apsley
Churchill, Winston
Ciszek, Walter SJ
Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Coetzee, J M.
Collins, Judy
Conroy, Frank
Conway, Jill Kerr
Covington, Dennis
Crews, Harry
Crick, Francis and James Watson
Crowell, Rodney
Dau, John Bul
Day, Dorothy
Dinesen, Isak
Didion, Joan
Dillard, Annie
Doty, Mark
Douglass, Frederick
Du Bois, W.E.B.
Dubus, Andre, III
Dunham, Lena
Dylan, Bob
Eggers, Dave
Eire, Carlos
Exley, Frederick
Fey, Tina
Forna, Aminatta
Fox, Paula
Frame, Janet
Frankl, Viktor
Franklin, Benjamin
Frazier, Ian
Frenkel, Edward
Fuller, Alexandra
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel
Gellhorn, Martha
George, Nelson
Geronimo
Gilbert, Elizabeth
Ginzburg, Yevgenia
Gourevitch, Philip
Graves, Robert
Gray, Francine du Plessix
Grealy, Luch
Greene, Graham
Guevara, Ernesto Che
Haley, Alex and Malcolm X
Hamilton, Gabrielle
Hampl, Patricia
Hardy, G.H.
Harrison, Kathryn
Haxton, Brooks
Hemingway, Ernest
Herr, Michael
Hickey, Dave
Hogan, Linda
Hongo, Garrett
Hooks, Bell
Huang, Eddie
Hurston, Zora Neale
Irving, Debby
Jackson, Phil
Jacobs, Harriet
Jamison, Kay
Jordan, June
Keller, Helen
Kidder, Tracy
Kincaid, Jamaica
King, Stephen
Kingston, Maxine Hong
Knausgard, Karl Ove
Krakauer, Jon
Lawrence, T. E.
Least Heat-Moon, William
Levi, Primo
Lewis, C. S.
Liao, Yiwu
Lopate, Philip
Lorde, Audre
Lowell, Robert
Macdonald, Helen
Malan, Rian
Mandela, Nelson
Mandelstam, Nadezhda
Manguso, Sarah
Mantel, Hilary
Markham, Beryl
Martin, Steve
Matthiessen, Peter
Mayle, Peter
McBride, James
McCarthy, Mary
McCourt, Frank
McPhee, John
Merton, Thomas
Milburn, Michael
Mingus, Charlea
Momaday, N. Scott
Momette, Paul
Moody, Anne
Murakami, Haruki
Nabokov, Vladimir
Nafisi, Azar
Neruda, Pablo
Nolan, Ty
Norris, Kathleen
Oates, Joyce Carol
Olsen, Tillie
Ondaatje, Michael
O'Rourke, Meghan
Orwell, George
Parker, Mary Louise
Patchett, Ann
Pirsig, Robert
Raban, Jonathan
Radziwill, Carole
Raphael, Lev
Red Cloud with Bob Drury and Tom Clavin
Reed, Ishmael
Rios, Albert
Rodriguez, Richard
Roth, Marco
Russell, Betrand
St Aubyn, Edward
Sallans, Ryan
Santiago, Esmeralda
Sartre, Jean-Paul
Sassoon, Siegfried
Shackleton, Ernest
Shakur, Assata
Shakur, Sanyika
Shteyngart, Gary
Sleigh, Tom
Smith, Patti
Smith, Tracy K.
Solomon, Andrew
Sontag, Susan
Soto, Jock
Stahl, Jerry
Strayed, Cheryl
Talley, Andre Leon
Tan, Amy
Theroux, Paul
Tolstoy, Leo
Thompson, Ahmir-Khalib
Thompson, Hunter S.
Trillin, Calvin
Twain, Mark
Walls, Jeannette
Wainaina, Binyavanga
Washington, Booker T.
Watt, Robert Lee
Weil, Simone
Welty, Eudora
White, Edmu d
White, T. H.
Wideman, John Edgar
Wiesel, Elie
Winterson, Jeanette
Wolfe, Tom
Wolfe, Geoffrey
Wolfe, Tobias
Woolf, Virginia
Wright, Richard
Yen Mah, Adeline
Zailckas, Koren
Mary Karr The Art of Memoir
"The tarantula ego--starving to be shored up by praise--tries to scare me away from saying simply whatever small, true thing is standing in line for me to say."
Amazing! Poetry Pharmacy in UK
https://www.keele.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/october/emergency-poet/literary-pharmacy.php
Tuesday, October 01, 2019
Saturday, September 28, 2019
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
fuck you ee cummings by Ron Currie
fuck you ee cummings
now would be a tough time for ee cummings
what with autocorrect and all
i know
because i'm writing an ee cummings poem
and i refuse to turn off autocorrect
because i want you to know how hard i worked
to write this for you
so instead of going the easy route
i'm training autocorrect
to accept, for example, a standalone lowercase i
i type it three times
and on the third time autocorrect starts to understand
that i will not relent
and it's like, "okay fine
what the fuck do i care
you can have your lowercase i, psycho."
yesterday i read a short article
they all have to be short these days
like these lines i'm writing now
are they short enough?
i can make them shorter
i've heard no one can concentrate anymore
so if you like
i can
trim
things
up
pare
things
down
to accommodate.
shit, though,
"accommodate" is probably too long a word
for the times
my apologies.
anyway
the short article i read
was written by a young woman
who photographs the dead and dying
which probably sounds weird
also macabre
but she does it at the request of families
who want these pictures
and it's beautiful
there is one photograph
of a mother in a hospital bed
she has just given birth
and the baby has died
they knew he was going to die
because his lungs didn't form properly
so he was fine in utero
while oxygen was being provided
by his mother
but the moment he had to breathe on his own
that was that
the doctors took the baby
while he was still alive
and set him on his mother's chest
so they could feel each other, however briefly
and the baby wrapped his little arm
around his mother's face
a totally reflexive thing for a baby to do
grasp and cling, you know
but also, frozen in a photograph,
the most touching gesture i've ever seen
i will never forget that image
i will see it on my own deathbed
looking at it, i cried
but not like she did.
most of the time
the things i read
day after day
blend together into a drone of static
you know how that feels?
scrolling, scrolling
insensate, narcotized
but that article
and that photo
jesus christ did i feel alive
sitting there weeping
it was glorious
to borrow that grief
every year
my wife and i and some friends go to cape cod
for a week at the end of summer
and the past few years
there have been more and more sightings of great white sharks
attacks, too
last year a young man was killed by one
less than a mile from where we stood
sipping wine in the shallows
and a town councilman
started calling for sharks to be killed
like he was some third-tier character in "jaws"
the kind everyone in the audience knows is an asshole
and an idiot
my wife worries about the sharks
but i don't
let me say right now
that in the unlikely event i am killed by a shark
i do not authorize anyone to go killing sharks on my behalf
as though they are wrong
to eat bipeds
who present themselves as easy meals
particularly when those bipeds
are busy destroying everything
the sharks prefer to eat.
a few months ago i sat in a room with some very smart people
and asked them a question
i requested that they only answer yes or no
"do you value human life over all other kinds?" i asked
they all answered yes
only one of them hesitated.
we were working on a television project about climate change
and each day we talked to experts
and learned
about how everything is dying
and we are responsible
and yet
every one of them still believed
in an unshakable bedrock way
that human life is more valuable
than anything else.
me personally, i'll swerve and veer into a telephone pole
to spare a squirrel.
we sat in that room for weeks
drank dozens and dozens of beverages
seltzer and unsweetened tea and kombucha
and put the plastic containers in the recycling bin
like good citizens.
at night i would go home
and drink beer and then
when the clock indicated it was time
to go to bed
i would take an over-the-counter sedative
and still wouldn't really sleep.
the reason i'm mad at ee cummings
is because he convinced several generations of would-be poets
that writing in all lowercase letters is somehow inherently profound
it isn't
it's just kind of dumb
and i don't care if ee cummings persists in the canon
and my work is forgotten
that doesn't make writing in all lowercase letters any less stupid.
sometimes talk among my friends turns to
the degradation of language
particularly written language
we care about these kinds of things
we're weird like that
and certainly it's not ee cummings' fault
that now everyone communicates
in abbreviations and cave scrawlings
but i'm angry
and he's a convenient target
and don't come at me with how
the rules of language
are classist and oppressive
designed to keep the tools of self-expression from the masses
i'm sick of that kind of talk
i grew up poor and i figured english out
so shut the fuck up and learn how to spell.
the friend of mine who cared the most about language
died last year
he was my best friend
and he just dropped
here today, gone tomorrow
that was hard
i drank too much for a while afterward
i drink a lot anyway
but in the months after he died
i was really getting after it
and i cried a lot
i wrote a book about him and us
that no one wants to publish
maybe because it's about two straight white guys
maybe because it's not a very good book
and that's okay
i think there are things about the book he wouldn't have liked
but he might have liked this poem
i wish i could show it to him and find out.
i'm tired of the drone of static
i don't want to hear your opinion
tell me instead about what you've lost
let me see the photo of the moment you lost it
rather than a photo of you on a beach
tell me about what you love more than anything
tell me about what scares you.
what i'm trying to say is
let's get real
fewer pictures of your brunch, please
and more pictures of dead babies
but we've had plenty of pictures of babies
now that i think about it
babies piled like cordwood in dachau
babies with their heads caved in in mississippi
babies burned and screaming outside trang bang
babies face-down in the rio grande
and we still go about our business
place our napalm orders before the end of the fiscal year
and fret idly about our bodyfat percentage
or whether men sit with their legs splayed too wide
on the subway.
so again, i want to hear from you about something real
but as a show of good faith
I'll go first
What scares me on this morning
is the thought that somewhere in the world
at a circus or some shitty unregulated zoo
somewhere in kazakhstan
or kansas
someone is using an ankus
which is a fancy word for a sharp metal hook
to get an elephant to do things like stand on its back legs
or get on board a train car.
i worked for a circus once
no, really
it was a small operation and had no performing animals
but there was a guy there who had worked with larger outfits
like ringling brothers
he fancied himself something of an intellectual
and tried to make the case
that animals like elephants have to be abused
in order to get them to behave
he was dismissive of any argument to the contrary
like for example that maybe we shouldn't keep elephants in captivity
in the first place
for the purpose of entertaining us
and then they wouldn't need to "behave"
he was an asshole
he probably thinks climate change is a hoax
he's so smart and no one can pull the wool over his eyes
i hope someday an elephant stomps his fucking guts out
i mean it
that's a performance i'd like to see
i would stand and applaud.
yesterday i was doing pull-ups and pushups
in the park
like an idiot
and an acquaintance came by on a bicycle
on his way to work
he's a lawyer for the aclu
we talked about how the planet is burning
and how in the context of that fact
nothing else really seems to matter
i told him how in the room
where we wrote about climate change
the scientists told us things privately
that they would never say publicly
because no one would believe them
because the truth is too horrible to believe
we also talked about david buckel
a lawyer who set himself on fire in brooklyn in 2018
to bring attention to what we've done to the planet
and then my friend had to get to work
and i went back to my pull-ups and pushups.
david buckel set himself on fire in brooklyn
doused himself with gasoline
struck a match
added a bit more carbon to the atmosphere
to make a point
and that night
after they'd come and taken his body away
a woman took a picture of the charred grass where he'd died
and posted the picture on twitter
not to call attention to what he'd done
not to demand we pay attention to his death
but to complain to the municipality
about children having to see the scorch marks
as they played soccer
which is about as ridiculous a response
as i can imagine
to a man killing himself
to save everyone else.
who will think of the children, indeed.
i have a dream
that sometime in the future
we will finally understand what we've done
and every april 14th
on the anniversary of david buckel's death
hundreds of thousands of us will set ourselves on fire
to honor him.
did you know that elephants have pads in their feet
that let them communicate with each other over miles?
they don't like lifting their feet off the ground
you have to really hurt them to get them to do it
because to an elephant
lifting your feet off the ground
is like you and me covering our eyes and ears
did you know that elephants
will break into metal containers
to recover the bodies of family who have been slaughtered
and give them a proper burial?
that they have grieving rituals
they perform year after year?
that like us
they never forget their dead?
most people don't realize it
but climate change denial doesn't really exist
except in the united states
england
and australia
the reason for this
is a man named rupert murdoch
who for a long time has controlled
great portions of the media
in those countries
rupert murdoch
is worse than hitler
i don't say that lightly
i don't toss around words like "fascism" and "genocide" willy-nilly
so when i say
rupert murdoch is worse than hitler
know that i mean it
in practical terms
like lives lost
and i believe
that history
if humanity survives in a form that can continue to record history
will bear me out
fuck you rupert murdoch
go back to where you came from
you aussie prick.
what i'm saying here is really important to me
by which i mean i have spent countless nights
in countless different rooms
staring at countless different ceilings and thinking about this
and because it's so important
and i want it to reach the widest possible audience
i decided to write a poem.
of course this is a pretty long poem
and free verse to boot
so if you decide you need to go do something else
i totally get it.
when you're a writer people sometimes ask
why you decided to be a writer
insofar as there's any answer
the thing i've settled on is that
writing is an act of faith
the faith that you and i love the same things
fear the same things
grieve the same things
no matter that i am a man and you are a woman
or that i am white and you are latino
or that i am american and you are afghani
faith, in short, that love and fear and grief are the same thing everywhere
and the rest is just details
and that if i write about the things i love and fear and grieve,
you will see yourself in me
and vice versa
and having looked in the mirror
and seen ourselves rendered strange yet recognizable
we will be less lonely and afraid and angry
and less inclined to want to kill each other
and less likely to dismiss each other's suffering
maybe.
but that sort of feels like greeting card bullshit and
i am not interested in feel-good nonsense
or we-are-the-world platitudes so
let me offer the ballast of acknowledging
that there are real and meaningful differences between us
that i neither deny nor discount
all i'm suggesting is
i am capable of a trick
by which i can imagine
the lives of people who are not me
nothing more or less than that.
and that you are capable of it, too.
as an example, one of the earliest pieces of fan mail i ever got
was from a sudanese refugee living in canada
who read my first book
and wanted to thank me for rendering her experience of the refugee camps in south sudan
so faithfully
when i told her i was a white boy from new england
and had never set foot in sudan
let alone in the camps where so many people were slaughtered
she couldn't believe it
kept testing my story
to find the holes
but there were none
i just looked at some pictures, i told her
and wrote a story that
her heart knew to be true.
i can even put myself in rupert murdoch's mind
despite the fact that he's a demon from hell
who will be directly responsible for the deaths of millions
once the waters start rising in earnest
he loves his children i bet
i can latch onto that love
feel it
replicate it
render his humanity
after all, there's plenty of evil in me, too.
neither of us will be spared, rupert, you shriveled, hateful old fuck.
sitting here looking at the baby lying on his mother's chest
appearing to sleep except for the blue tinge of his skin
sitting here thinking about the cuts behind the elephant's ears
and her loneliness
unable to hear her family through her feet
i feel an eruption of sadness so strong it seems i can't bear it
i know you've felt the same
so let's maybe talk about that
instead of which presidential candidate we favor.
don't worry; i'm not a revolutionary
i'm not brave enough to do anything except write
though i do sometimes have idle thoughts like
the last radical act left to us might be
to destroy the internet
if such a thing is even possible anymore.
this'll sound weird but
sometimes i worry the arrangement
between me and my dog
is one of warden and prisoner
that every act of domestication through history has been
nothing but evil
predicated entirely on the fact that we happen to have
the most impressive brains on the planet.
certainly plenty of animals have had worse lives than my dog
he's spoiled rotten
but i was listening to an interview with a guy who studies
the relationship between humans and animals
and he said something interesting about the movie "e.t."
what if e.t. had whisked elliott away to his home planet
and put a collar on him and told him when he could and could not
eat
go to the bathroom
breathe fresh air
feel the sun on his face
or worse
had strapped elliott into some rig that kept him from being able to move anything
but his eyes
as e.t. and his buddies cut and prodded and shocked and burned
and then e.t.
as justification
said "sorry elliott, but
we simply had to know what kind of effect
this drain cleaner has when applied to your bare eyeballs
and left there for thirty-six hours
and we're smarter than you so
surely you can see how all this is entirely justified
or at least you would be able to see that
if you could see anymore
which you can't."
i think about those smart people in that room
cooking up stories about climate change
talking each day about how we've fucked everything up
and yet still so certain
that we're the best, most important thing
in the universe
with our big brains
and impressive thumbs.
i have no idea why this poem is becoming
so spielberg-heavy
but fuck it
sometime you just go
where it takes you.
a smart man once said
that the quality of our thoughts
can only be as good
as the quality of our language
so let me engage in something even more futile than writing a poem
or setting myself on fire
and ask you to communicate in complete sentences
ask you to care about the difference between
your and you're
ask you to understand
that language
used skillfully
is how you become me
and i become you
language
used skillfully
is how we care more about dead babies
than fucking instagram sunsets
language
used skillfully
is how we learn to hear
with our feet.
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