Kimmy Walters
is it worse if we invented sadness or if it was here all along waiting for the earth to grow a creature capable of detecting it — Kimmy Walters, from “Build A Little Shrine For The Dead,” Killer. (Bottlecap Press 2016)
Month: October 2017
Umberto Eco
Nothing is more fleeting than the external form, which withers and alters like the flowers of the field at the appearance of autumn. — Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose. (Everyman’s Library; First Edition edition September 26, 2006) Originally published 1980.
Liu Ch’ang
The moon, emerging, Floats where clouds are not; Wind rises, Strikes the purity of night, Stars compete In trembling flickers, The Milky Way is empty, Clear, and bright. Old trees’ sparse shadows Intersperse. Scared birds cut off their Noises lingering. This autumn I am rapt In what’s already awry, While crickets campaign Again at night.… Continue reading Liu Ch’ang
Walt Whitman
These are the days that must happen to you. — Walt Whitman, from “Song of the Open Road,” Leaves of Grass. Originally published: July 4, 1855.
Adélia Prado
I write a poem and delude myself that I’ve escaped sadness. I merely make it rhythmic, lighter perhaps. I do my best to make it beautiful, bearable, and for that reasonless reason I cry some more. — Adélia Prado, from “A Good Cause,” The Alphabet in the Park: Selected Poems (Wesleyan, 1990)
Marty Rubin
A brutal, relentless self-analysis lies at the heart of all despair. ― Marty Rubin
W.B. Yeats
How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; — W.B. Yeats, from “When You Are Old,” The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. Edited by Richard J. Finneran, (Scribner, 1989)
Chuck Palahniuk
Put the gun to my head and paint walls with my brains. ― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club. . (W. W. Norton October 17, 2005)
William Stafford
Waking At 3 a.m. Even in the cave of the night when you wake and are free and lonely, neglected by others, discarded, loved only by what doesn’t matter—even in that big room no one can see, you push with your eyes till forever comes in its twisted figure eight and lies down in your… Continue reading William Stafford
Knut Hamsun
…I will exile my thoughts if they think of you again, and I will rip my lips out if they say your name once more. Now if you do exist, I will tell you my final word in life or in death, I tell you goodbye. ― Knut Hamsun, Hunger. (Dover Publications, November 17, 2003)
The Vale of Soul-Making 