At Rhino.
Teaser quote: It’s a book for everybody. As much as an axe helve is fitted to the grasp of the human hand, this text is fitted for the human mind. Which is to say it’s 100% homely anecdotes, parables, witty comebacks, all of ’em numbered, crystal clear, ramjam with images. Every metaphor is spot-on and memorable. Listen: it wouldn’t have been continuously quoted by every Persian-speaker for 760 years unless it was something special.
[originally posted Tuesday 3 July 2018]
Teaser quote: If you ignore this principle, if you write a book, say, that is formidable nine ways from Tuesday, piled high with sophistication and impressive this ’n’ that, but which you don’t actually like, then what ends up happening is you helplessly side with the people who don’t care about your work. Next stop is the bottle.
A New Revision of Guang Yun (Song Edition) with Cross-referencing Pronunciations (Le Jin Books, 2010):
https://rhinopoetry.org/reviews/carmina-burana-ed-david-traill-reviewed-by-anthony-madrid
Teaser quote: Granted, these poems, even the best of ’em, aren’t for everybody. “Spring is returned, and lo! the birds…,” “That pert lady with her heart-gladdening eyes…,” and so on. A guy I knew in grad school summarized the whole thing as “titties and beer.”
Teaser quote #1: ○ Pepys’s Diary ○ Aubrey’s Brief Lives ○ Palgrave’s Golden Treasury ○ Flaubert’s Dictionary of Received Ideas ○ The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon ○ Li Zhi’s A Book to Burn
Teaser quote #2: Open to any page, you’re going to hell.
Teaser quote: When Ivashko got down off the eagle, the eagle spat out the piece of flesh and told him to put it back into his shoulder. Ivashko did so, and the shoulder healed. He came home, took the maiden of the golden kingdom from his brothers, and they began to live happily together and are still living. I was at their wedding and drank beer. The beer ran along my mustache but did not go into my mouth.
In Disclaimer.
Teaser quote: There was an old man from Messina, who perceived he’d been served a subpoena.
Teaser quote: Whar ’n the ——— you goin’ to! Cain’t you see nothin’, you dash-dashed aig-suckin’, sheep-stealin’, one-eyed son of a stuffed monkey!
Teaser quote: 1327, 1328, 1329, 1330, 1331, 1332, 1333, 1334, 1335, 1336, 1337, 1338, 1339, 1340, 1341, 1342, 1343, 1344, 1345, 1346, 1347, 1348, 1349, 1350, 1351, 1352, 1353, 1354, 1355, 1356, 1357, 1358, 1359, 1360, 1361.
Teaser quote: The part I can’t explain is how Auden can possibly have thought anything good was gonna come out of this assignment.
Preview: This is a podcast edited from a {reading + talk} I gave at the Seminary Co-op, September 2017. I need somebody to listen to it and tell me if it’s OK.
Teaser quote: Do modern Chinese poetry enthusiasts have to develop a taste for Dickinson-style rhyming?
Teaser quote: The whole thing screams allegory. A girl named “Soul” (that’s what Psyche means) marries “Love” (Cupid) but is not allowed to look at him. Eventually she does look at him and he immediately tells her “Nice going, asshole,” and deserts her. She then goes through many trials and tribulations, and is eventually reunited with Cupid—who never really stopped loving her. They have a kid named Pleasure or Delight or whatever. The end. I am leaving out a ton of stuff
At Berfrois.
Teaser quote: Form is not much in favor these days. The most recent issue of Poetry—not that we should let that magazine set the standard just because it has the temerity to call itself Poetry and pays its writers by the line—doesn’t have a single poem written in form.
Teaser quote: Then the main one reaches into the wound up to her elbow, and draws out Socrates’s heart, and they plug the hole with the sponge, saying a spell to the effect of “O sponge, born in the sea, beware of crossing a river.” Then they squat over the other guy, who’s half-dead with fright, and piss on him, thoroughly drenching him. Then they leave. The door springs back into place. The hinges reassemble.
Teaser quote: There was an old man at the Strand, / Whose focaccia got way out of hand…
