Alessandro Baricco
Maybe it’s that life, at times, gets to you in a way that there’s really nothing more to say. — Alessandro Baricco, Silk (Vintage,1998)
Month: September 2017
Pier Giorgio di Cicco
I Want You to See I want you to see the hole in my shirt where your heart went through like a Colt 45, and opened a dream at the back of the neck. Here, let me unbutton it for you. Notice the ribs, those sweet things you loved, notice the insides, the parchment lampshades,… Continue reading Pier Giorgio di Cicco
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
I know myself insofar as I am inherent in time and in the world, that is, I know myself only in ambiguity. — Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, translated by Colin Smit. (Routledge; 2 edition, May 5, 2002)
Richard Jackson
What I want you to see is that this is a love poem. It only exits if you see it that way. — Richard Jackson, from “Shorelines,” Body (June 8, 2012)
Jorge Luis Borges
Beyond my anxiety, beyond this writing, the universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting. ― Jorge Luis Borges, A Personal Anthology. (Grove Press, January 14, 1994) Originally published 1961.
Marilyn Hacker
I don’t want to remember you as that four o’clock in the morning eight months long after you happened to me like a wrong number at midnight that blew up the phone bill to an astronomical unknown quantity in a foreign currency. — Marilyn Hacker, from “Nearly a Valediction,” in “Against Elegies,” Winter Numbers: Poems.… Continue reading Marilyn Hacker
Thomas Merton
For language to have meaning there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance. He who retires into silence does not necessarily hate language. Perhaps it is love and respect for language which imposes silence upon him. — Thomas Merton, Disputed Questions. (Harvest Books; 1st Harvest/HBJ ed edition,… Continue reading Thomas Merton
Nate Pritts
I work so hard to forget myself & now the trees are full of autumn. This is the time of year when I would rip myself apart if I thought it would do any good. — Nate Pritts, from “Life Event,” Powder Keg (Issue One)
John Keats
The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were. ― John Keats
Gunnar Ekelöf
the silence drinks the slow autumn rain which no longer makes anything good grow the folded hands warm each other the stiff looks fade among the live coals — Gunnar Ekelöf, from “Mirrror of October,” Friends, You Drank Some Darkness, Three Swedish Poets: Harry Martinson, Gunnar Ekelöf & Tomas Tranströmer (Beacon Press, 1975)
The Vale of Soul-Making 