Where We All Slowly DieFrom the Print
More importantly though, they lack that one vital piece of knowledge: how to lift a dead body. How, then, are they any different from that outstretched body cooling motionless before them?
30 October (1959): William Burroughs to Allen Ginsberg
Thanks a million for the mescaline. Split it with Brion [Gysin] for a short trip home..
29 October (1952): Carl Sandburg to Paula Steichen
I think of you as my Mexican Zinnia. Others may have Mexicale Rose but you came in Zinnia time and I see three of them before me now, thoughtful in a quiet dreaminess.
New Poetry Round-Up: Seshadri, Lauterbach, O’BrienFrom the Print
Ann Lauterbach is an experimental poet in the best sense of the word. Erudite yet curious, readable yet uncompromising, her poetry explores the foggy terrain between self-expression and social justice…
28 October (1863): Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to James Thomas Fields
Strange as you may think it, I find no longer any pleasure in such things, nor take any interest in going about among men. Whenever I try it, I fail utterly. I had rather be here at my work as long as the day continues; for the night cometh in which no man shall work.
A Conversation with Artist Nicky Nodjoumi
With a twist. The problem is people. When they come into power, no matter what, they do bad things. The paintings are generally about people in power, it doesn’t matter what country…
25 October (1814): Percy Bysshe Shelley to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
I will make this remorseless villain loathe his own flesh in good time; he shall be cut down in his season; his pride shall be trampled into atoms; I will wither up his selfish soul by piecemeal.
Whatever Happened to New York City Opera?
Despite the fairly well documented “missteps” the company has taken on its way from being the second major opera outfit in New York City to nonexistence, there persists a subtext of disbelief. Everyone is asking: How could this have happened? What could have been done to prevent it?
24 October (1907): Marianne Moore to Mary and John Warner Moore
I have written, what I like better than anything I have ever writ before, a thing called “The Nature of a Literary Man.” Perhaps, “Pym.” It expresses nothing but a series of individual impressions in “my latest style” and is crystal-clear.
23 October (1804): William Blake to William Haley
…but I was a slave bound in a mill among beasts and devils; these beasts and these devils are now, together with myself, become children of light and liberty, and my feet and my wife’s feet are free from fetters.