In reading Conrad Aiken’s essay, “William Faulkner: The Novel as Form,” a new idea occurred to me about Faulkner’s style which I have not seen written about anywhere else. Aiken complains about the difficulty of Faulkner’s writing, calling it “annoying,” “distracting,” and even “downright bad.” At the same time, Aiken praises Faulkner’s genius, calls himself a huge fan, and goes to great lengths to distill what Faulkner is after with his particularly challenging form. There is an exuberance in Aiken’s essay that betrays a deep respect and admiration for the power of Faulkner’s writing. He is a ..read more

Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal by Alan Watts Arousal: The Secret Logic of Sexual Fantasies by Dr. Michael J. Bader Living at the Movies: Poems by Jim Carroll Praying Naked: Poems by Katie Condon The Fall by Albert Camus The Photoplay: A Psychological Study by Hugo Munsterberg The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life’s Perfection by Michael Singer Living at the Movies: Poems by Jim Carroll Memory Coach: Train and Sustain a Mega-Memory in 40 Days by Dr. Gareth Moore Stag’s Leap: Poems by Sharon Olds Start Where You Are: A ..read more

The Twenty-Ninth Year: Poems by Hala Alyan The Poetics of the Everyday: Creative Repetition in Modern American Verse by Siobhan Phillips The No Contact Rule: A guide to surviving your breakup with your self-respect… by Natalie Lue The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind… by Dr. Joe Dispenza Leaving the Enchanted Forest: The Path from Relationship… by Stephanie S. Covinton The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained  Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow Yes, And: Daily Meditations by ..read more

While reading Bessel van der Kolk’s remarkable book about trauma, The Body Keeps the Score, I was struck by how the word “frozen” reappeared throughout the book, and it reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite writers, Franz Kafka, where he states that “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” If we apply what van der Kolk has discovered about the nature of trauma, which is detailed exquisitely in Body, we can understand on a deeply personal level what Kafka’s quote may have meant for him, and in turn what it can mean for us.  This is an excerpt from Kafka ..read more

The radiator holds its boiling water like an accordion holding its breath in a ditch. The room itself is simple, the sort rented out night by night to the poor to make more poor or to die in but it is not night nor is she poor. She could have afforded a nicer room and it is day. Closing the blinds the way someone takes out a contact that’s been bothering her, she lies down, the only sounds wrenches clunking in the radiator and a boy playing piano in the lobby like someone falling down stairs. Clearly he is unsupervised. Clearly soon someone ..read more

Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it. It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds. The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil. The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold. But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white feet of the trees whose mouths open. Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance? Haven’t the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe, until at last, now, they shine in your own yard? Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education. When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking outward, to the mountains so ..read more

The first cup moistens my throat. The second breaks my loneliness. The third goes deep into my soul, To search for the literati of the five thousand scrolls. The fourth makes me sweat, All the injustice in life vaporizes through my pores. The fifth lessens the weight of my flesh and bone. The sixth lifts me to encounter the immortals. Ah, I better not take the seventh cup, as I feel a wind blowing through my wings.   –circa 820 Qian Xuan. Early Autumn. 13th C.   Lu Tong was a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty in the 8th century. He was known for his lifelong study of tea. H ..read more

Joyce offers a clear look at things with his story “Araby” from his collection Dubliners. Although the lesson is a painful one, the boy narrator of the story has achieved a small yet decisive epiphany about life. His eyes have been opened. Apparently Joyce suffered from eye problems almost all his life (glaucoma, iritis) and his image is only made complete with the iconic rounded eyeglasses he wore. Thus it is quite appropriate that seeing be a major theme in this story. It begins by saying that the street the narrator lived on was “blind” yet “the other houses of the street . . . gazed at one ..read more

Helicopters are cutlassing the wild bananas. Between a nicotine thumb and forefinger brittle faces crumble like tobacco leaves. Children waddle in vests, their legs bowed, little shrimps curled under their navels. The old men’s teeth are stumps in a charred forest. Their skins grate like the iguana’s. Their gaze like slate stones. Women squat by the river’s consolations where children wade up to their knees, and a stick stirs up a twinkling of butterflies. Up there, in the blue acres of forest, flies circle their fathers. In spring, in the upper provinces of the Empire, yellow tanagers float u ..read more

     No one spoke The host, the guest,      The white chrysanthemums –circa 1750 John Singer Sargent. Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. 1885. Oshima Ryota was born in 1718 and was a haiku master working primarily in Edo, known for his wit and urbanity. He was a disciple of the Basho school and a contemporary of Buson. He became on of the most influential haiku masters of the 18th century, and reportedly had some 3,000 students all over Japan. In 1759 he published a book of criticism on the haiku of Basho. He died in 1787. Food for Thought: What is the drama happening in this poem? Why do ..read more