My chocolate of choice:
Books read recently by J. Zimmerman
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My chocolate of choice:
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Reader's Bill of Rights [after Daniel Pennac in Better than Life
from November 2003 Utne Magazine] includes the rights to:
 Skip pages
Not read
Not finish
Not defend your tastes
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'the decay of intricate formal patterns has nothing to do with the advent of vers libre.
It had set in long before.'
'there is only good verse, bad verse, and chaos' 'it is possible that excessive devotion to rhyme has thickened the modern ear' There is: 'no reason why, within the single line, there should be any repetition, why there should not be lines (as there surely are) divisible only into feet of different type' Burton Raffel's (1984) How to Read a Poem, p. 247, quoting TSE without citations. |
{ June : roku-gatsu (see also books on learning Japanese) 2015 }
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I MITE HAV KNOWN
Well i mite hav expected it. The game's up. They got me just when i thort i was safe. So here i am back at SKOOL agane for a joly term. |
Molesworth is one of the best books read in 2015 ("as any fule kno"). See also: Down With Skoool! and How to Be Topp. and Whizz for Atoms.
The book is full of examples from his own plays,is organized around a series of
his own "Obvious Rules" beginning with:
Others include:
Ayckbourn's to date:
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From the Confucian point of views, it might be the story of the wealth and honor of a
great and noble house and its self destruction. . .
From the Buddhist and Taoist points of view the answer might be: It is a story of the gradual awakening, purification, and final transcendence of a soul originally sunk in the slime of temporal strivings. From the Western point of view the answer might be this: It is the case history of a highly gifted but degenerate young aristocrat, a psychopath and a weakling, asocial, effeminate, plagued by inferiority complexes and manic depressions, who, though capable of a temporary rallying of energies, founders among the demands of reality and slinks cravenly away from human society. |
A five-hour piece of two back-to-back plays, where two very pissed-off people (one a psychopath) agree to extract revenge for each other. Four deaths later, true love prevails.
| KAREN: "If you don't mind my saying so, that is a very, very ignorant thing to say." |
Ayckbourn's to date:
A woman is conked on the forehead by her garden rake. Her nearest and dearest may all be hallucinations.
| The common reader, as Dr. Johnson implies, differs from the critic and the scholar. He is worse educated, and nature has not gifted him so generously. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct created for him, out of whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of whole — a portrait of a man, a sketch of an age, a theory of the art of writing. . . . Hasty, inaccurate, and superficial, snatching now this poem, now that scrap of old furniture without caring where he finds it or what nature it may be so long as it serves his purpose and rounds his structure, his deficiencies as a critic are too obvious to be pointed out; but if he has, as Dr. Johnson maintained, some say in the final distribution of poetical honours, then, perhaps, it may be worth while to write down a few of the ideas which, insignificant in themselves, yet contribute so mightily to a result. |
Woolf is such an insightful and snippy writer that it is almost a shame to consign my spine-cracked musty-smelling paperback to the trash. But life is short and Marie Kondo is breathing down my neck.
(2015)
Geppo (Mar-Apr 2015),
the haiku study-work journal of the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society.
Includes a
haiku by moi,
tied for 10th place in the kukai:
whistle-stop speech for seven breaths of spring I believe him |
Beverly Acuff Momoi is one of the finest of many fine poets to be included in this 'emergence'. The 17 poets, each with 17 poems, are:
See some sample haiku at: the New Resonance 9 portion of the page for Beverly Acuff Momoi.
Red Moon anthologies read to date:
The text of Knuth's six lectures on his process of studying the Bible: Chapter 3, Verse 16, for each book of the Bible (where such a verse exists — some Bible books don't have three chapters). Lots of notes amplify each lecture. Plus there are many pages of audience-Q & Knuth-A.
As it's Knuth, there is So Much to appreciate in his straightforward documentation of his sampling technique (akin to my method of deciding whether or not to read a book) and his OC investigation, which he began simply because he was invited to give a Bible Study Class.
It was wonderful to read a computer-ish book again - must be a decade! I feel slightly nostalgic for Searching and Sorting and Knuth's other computer books that I've dumped over the last decade.
Observations from Knuth include:
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[T]he amount of terror that lives in a speaker's stomach when giving a lecture
is proportional to the square of the amount he doesn't know about his audience.
[p. 20]
I try to gauge how good the books are by picking them up and . . . I turn to page 316. I try to read the whole page rather carefully, and this gives me an impression of the whole book. (Often the book is too short [as is this book of Knuth]; then I use page 100.) [p. 32] There's a case where my translation of one of the 3:16 verses is different from any other, in any Bible that I've ever seen . . . This is Mark 3:16 . . .
All other translations of the Bible naturally use the name "Peter" instead of "Rock". But the fact is, at the time when Jesus called him Rock there was no such name as Peter. . . . I also think it's helpful to think "Rock" in every other place that the name "Peter" appears in the Bible. [p. 67-68] [Ronald] Knox wrote a charming little book called On Englishing the Bible, which is even harder to find than a copy of his Old Testament translation. . . . He explains the important differences between a literal translation and a literary translation. . . . retaining the sense and feeling of the original as well as I could understand it and express is. [p. 71] If I look back at my own life and try to pick out the parts that were most creative, I can't help but notice that they occurred when I was forced to work under the toughest constraints. [p. 82] |
One of the best books read in 2015.
Explores remapping the neural net through tools of meditation and "Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy".
One of the best books read in 2015.
A few good poems, "The Baler" (pp. 23-24) being one of the better, beginning:
All day the clunk of a baler Ongoing, cardiac-dull, So taken for granted |
But although it goes against the will of the Nobel Prize Committee, Blyis the better poet: both have roots in a farming tradition; both stray into history, myth, and politics; but Heaney tends to be too cryptic for me.
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Molesworth is one of the best books read in 2015 ("as any fule kno"). See also: Down With Skoool! and How to Be Topp.
And none of them reach the perfection of "Chivalry" (in which Sir Galahad finally ends his quest for the Holy Grail) in Angels and Visitations: A Miscellany (1993).
It's a very interesting collection for the last three years of this contest, both the haibun and also the insightful commentary by the judges. The 2012 Grand Prize went to D.J. Peel (U.K.) for "Jackdaws". The 2013 Grand Prize went to Jane Fraser (U.K.) for "Towards Burry Holms". The 2014 Grand Prize went to Margaret Chula (USA) for "Well of Beauty".
There were a total of 8 runners up, each receiving in An (Cottage) Prize. And in total 18 Honourable mentions.
Winners are worldwide but each year includes a handful from the USA: Holman, Pearce, & Beary in 2012; Lynch, Chula, & Ross in 2013; Chula, Dornus, & Caretti in 2014.
An insert shows that the 2015 Grand Prize went to Sonam Chhoki (Butan) for "Mining Memories". For 2015 there were a total of 3 runners up, each receiving in An (Cottage) Prize. And in 5 Honourable mentions.
Includes a haiku by moi.
Three couples meet on various combinations in three bedrooms with action jumping increasingly quickly amongst the locations. Sedate British bourgeois chaos.
In real time, five people meet a one-time friend over high tea. Truths and hypocrisies are revealed. Sedate British bourgeois chaos.
Three couples meet on three successive Christmases at each others homes. Sedate British bourgeois chaos.
York's "Foreword to a Subsequent Reading" [pp.79-80] offers a route into the material:
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Abide
is a book made of two books, each written over and within the other.
One of these books advances the project . . . to elegize each of the martyrs of the civil rights movement . . . [both the 40 publicly recognized at the Civil Rights Monument erected in Montgomery in 1989 as well as the many] "forgotten" case [that] have come back into the light, writing more darkly the faint names in the company of martyrs. To elegize the martyrs of the movement requires delicacy, requires reflection. . . . In these moments of hesitation, these poems consider or enact the consideration of the necessary ethical questions — what does it mean to elegize, what does it mean to elegize martyrs, what does it mean to disturb the symmetries of the South's racial politics or its racial poetics? The project has two strands, then, an elegiac and an ethical one. . . . We visit memory sites, like the Civil Rights Memorial, but if memory lives only there, it isn't memory any more. Memory lives in the breath we breathe, in the air we make together. |
Some of the poems may work better on the voice than on the page, but two that I connect with are "Postscript" (For Medgar Evers) [p.16], which ends:
Again, today, the light is new, and because you are nowhere you are everywhere, in the face of which I'd ask how can I say anything, in the face of which I ask how can I say nothing at all? |
and the title poem, "Abide" [p.53]
Forgive me if I forget with the birdsong and the day's last glow folding into the hands of the trees . . . if I startle when you put your hand in mine, if I wonder how long your light has taken to reach me here. |
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You kno who this is e.g. Me nigel molesworth the curse of st custard's.
I can't be a sec becos they hav got me on the run and all the headmasters
in britain are after me with their GATS and COSHES ect.
I kno what it means when they catch up tho actually headmasters seldom
do they are fat and cannot run for tooffe.
. . . You could becom topp if you want to but most pupils do not. If they use this book they could come half-way up or even botom hem-hem. |
Note the super-secret knowledge on p.166 of Molesworth where the headmaster of nigel's skool (st custard's) greets his rival (the head master of porridge court skool) thus:
| "Well how are you hoggwart eh wot eh." |
Yes, the headmaster of nigel's enemy skool, porridge court, is called "hoggwart" so another name for that skool could be "hoggwarts" or (with better spelling than nigel can muster) "Hogwarts" as later adopted by JKR for another skool story.
Molesworth is one of the best books read in 2015 ("as any fule kno").
An informative complement to Turner in His Time by Andrew Wilton.
Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal (issue 18, 2015)
which includes a
tanka by J. Zimmerman.
{ May : go-gatsu (see also books on learning Japanese) 2015 }
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This is me e.g. nigel molesworth the curse of st custard's
which is the skool i am at. It is uterly wet and weedy as i shall
(i hope) make clear but of course that is the same with all skools.
. . . In fact any skool is a bit of a shambles AS YOU WILL SEE |
Molesworth is one of the best books read in 2015 (also "as any fule kno").
This glorious 256-page text includes 186 illustrations (164 in color). It is the best biography of Turner that I have seen, bringing alive his development as an artist and as a person.
Sections (by the years of Turner's life):
Large reproductions of his oils and watercolors. Interesting to lay a hand on outlying highlights and dark spots, to see how essential they are to the power of his composition.
It's especially interesting to see images and notes from his sketch books, including the 1801 Scottish, the 1802 Continental (Switzerland) ("greys and blues heightened with white" (pencil and chalk)), and the 1805 Isleworth.
One of the best books read in 2015.
Eye-opening but painful to read (or skim-read in the case of the graphic war reports). Includes 46 detailed pages of notes.
In these parts:
The impoverishment of the Japanese at the end of WWII is documented as is the way that General Douglas MacArthur led the occupation team [particularly through his SCAP (Supreme Command for the Allied Powers) regime] in salvaging and rehabilitating the image of the Japanese Emperor while ensuring that a new constitution was written along democratic lines for Japan. Eye-opening. Includes 86 detailed pages of notes.
In these parts:
Includes the liaison roles of two Western haiku poets, including ghost-writing an Imperial Rescript to offer an "imperial 'declaration of humanity'" [pp.310-318], by:
The work of bilingual Beate Sirota was essential to ensuring women's rights clauses in the draft constitution [pp.380].
Towards the end [pp.555-556]:
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The emperor and the general [MacArthur] had presided as dual sovereigns
through the years of defeat and occupation. They shared a great deal in common,
but like the poles of a magnetic field they carried the charges of different
roles and missions; and the field itself, the body politic of the defeated land,
had been electric with creative tensions. This seems clearer now, with the passage
of time. It was not so obvious when the occupation ended.
. . . When asked by a journalist in 1975 whether Japanese values had changed, the emperor expressed . . . "looking at this from a broader perspective, I do not think there has been any change between prewar and postwar". . . . On the contrary, where the emperor consistently dwelled on continuity, the general [MacArthur] never ceased to extol the revolutionary transformation that the Japanese had undergone. . . . emphasizing how much the despised enemy had changed during his interregnum as supreme commander. MacArthur obviously was burnishing his own reputation. As far as one can tell, however, he sincerely believed these claims. |
At heart they take the Drake Equation (though their Index says 'assumptions in solving' it are on page xii — a totally blank page in their book), which multiplies a set of variables to estimate the number of advanced civilizations that might exist in the Milky Way Galaxy to be:
N = the product of: stars in the galaxy fraction of sun-like stars fraction of stars with planets planets in a star's habitable zone fraction of habitable planets where life does arise fraction of planets where life becomes intelligent percentage of a planet's lifetime with a communicative civilization |
They tweak the equation and conclude: "it appears that the Earth indeed may be extraordinarily rare" [p.275]. But long before this, they express "an inescapable conclusion: Earth is a rare place indeed" [p.33].
Interesting collections of data include those speculating "What Caused the Cambrian Explosion?" and the reprinting [p.165] of the Hartmann and Impey 1994 consolidation of meteor impact data (1-meter impacts occur hourly on the earth's atmosphere, 100-meter impacts occur every millennium devastating continent-scale regions, and 10-km impacts occur every hundred million years and would fill 70% of all species, being of the scale of the impact 65 mya that wiped out so many species including dinosaurs).
Their most interesting chapter (9: "The Surprising Importance of Plate Tectonics") presents what would happen if plate tectonics ceased:
Their chapter 10: ("The Moon, Jupiter, and Life on Earth") describes how the moon stabilizes the angle of tilt (23 degrees) of the Earth's spin axis. "Without the Moon, the tilt angle would wander in response to the gravitational pulls of the sun and Jupiter . . . [providing] long-term stability of Earth's surface temperature" [pp. 223-224]. Even more astonishingly, they report that:
| Soon after the Moon formed, it was perhaps 15,000 miles from Earth [it is now 250,000 miles away so it was 6% of that distance]. Instead of being a few meters high, as they are today, it is possible that lunar tides rose hundreds of meters or higher. The extreme effects of such a close moon could have strongly heated Earth's surface. The ocean tides (and land tides) from a nearby Moon would have been enormous, and the flexing of Earth's crust, along with frictional heating, may have actually melted the rocky surface. However severe their effects, the enormous tidal variations would have been short-lived because the forces responsible for tides also caused the Moon to move outward, thus diminishing the effect. Early land tides may have been a kilometer high but they dropped to moderate levels in less than a million years [p. 227]. |
With Browlee's moderating influence this book has a higher science quotient and a lower ego quotient than Ward's solo effort Under a Green Sky.
p.6: "Astrobiology is a discipline that is useful for predicting the kinds of planets that could harbor life, to search for such life, and to understand the life cycle of our own world.".
p.23: "Earth will survive for a total of 12 billion years [4.6 having passed] before it is either consumed or severely scorched by the Sun in its last moments as a red giant star . . . The tenure of animals and plants is remarkably short, starting at four [billion] and ending at about five".
A richer and better-written book on this topic is Elizabeth Kolbert's (2014) The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.
Ward's book seems advertised as science, but it has more gung-ho-ish memoir material than I wanted. Ward foregrounds himself as more special than I have patience with, beginning (if not with the above quote) with p.2: "I was the other member here . . . one of the new breed of American scientists whose styled themselves as 'paleobiologists' . . . to bring new intellectual vibrancy into the oldest field of Earth science, paleontology, by trying to master two fields, not just one". So I skimmed, found some OK science that I'd mostly seen elsewhere, and more self-praise; and closed the book.
Their advice includes:
Their Contents has a half page of topics for each chapter, so one way to save time is to skim the contents then look at the Index so you can find your information. (Despite the topic lists, these topics don't seem to be used as subheadings that could help the reader.)
Some interesting factoids:
A rather self-satisfied old-guy memoir: Klein describes a Greece visit, intertwined with his thoughts on achieving a fulfilling old age.
Housden's comments on each poem are appreciative. The poem by Miguel de Unamuno "Throw Yourself Like Seed"
Shake of this sadness, and recover your spirits; sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate that brushes your heel as it turns going by, the man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant. ... Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field, don't turn your face for that would be to turn it to death, and do not let the past weigh down your motion. ... from your work you will be able one day to gather yourself. |
Another excellent poem is Stanley Kunitz's "The Layers":
... How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face. Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me. ... no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes. |
A spectacular poem is C.P. Cavafy's "The God Abandons Anthony":
When suddenly, at midnight, you hear an invisible procession going by with exquisite music, voices, don't mourn you luck that's failing now, work gone wrong, you plans all proving deceptive — don't mourn then uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don't fool yourself, don't say it was a dream, your ears deceived you: don't degrade yourself with empty hopes like these. ... And listen with deep emotion, but not with whining, the pleas of a coward; ... and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing. |
(2015)
Geppo (Jan-Feb 2015),
the haiku study-work journal of the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society.
Especially admire:
to a chorus of crickets
the earth
gives up its light
Laurie W. Stoelting
a "don't bother" waterfall
filling the canyon
with rainbows
Laurie W. Stoelting
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Kinsey Millhone encounters death threats, a primo body guard, a birthday, true love (or at least lust), and the worst psychopaths in her life so far. A book to keep you awake all night.
Books read in Sue Grafton's series include:
1982: A is for Alibi .
1985: B is for Burglar.
1986: C is for Corpse.
1987: D is for Deadbeat.
1988: E is for Evidence.
1989: F is for Fugitive:
also a favorite.
1990: G is for Gumshoe.
1991: H is for Homicide.
1992: I is for Innocent.
1993: J is for Judgment.
1994: K is for Killer.
1995: L is for Lawless.
1996: M is for Malice.
1998: N is for Noose.
1999: O is for Outlaw.
2001: P is for Peril.
2003: Q is for Quarry.
2004: R is for Ricochet.
2005: S is for Silence,
my favorite in the series so far, perhaps because of the liveliness of the characters.
2007: T is for Trespass,
one of her scariest books yet; becomes riveting.
2009: U is for Undertow,
a very satisfying book.
2011: V is for Vengeance,
very good.
2013: W is for Wasted,
very good: more cousins appear; drug trial shenanigans.
2013: Kinsey and Me.
{ April : shi-gatsu (see also books on learning Japanese) 2015 }
(4.23.2015)
Presence #51,
the haiku journal.
Includes a haiku by moi.
A still-feisty Kinsey Millhone contacts her inner-moll in an undercover sting that is lively and interesting, despite a couple of dubious coincidences and several unreliable colleagues.
Books read in Sue Grafton's series include:
1982: A is for Alibi .
1985: B is for Burglar.
1986: C is for Corpse.
1987: D is for Deadbeat.
1988: E is for Evidence.
1989: F is for Fugitive:
also a favorite.
1991: H is for Homicide.
1992: I is for Innocent.
1993: J is for Judgment.
1994: K is for Killer.
1995: L is for Lawless.
1996: M is for Malice.
1998: N is for Noose.
1999: O is for Outlaw.
2001: P is for Peril.
2003: Q is for Quarry.
2004: R is for Ricochet.
2005: S is for Silence,
my favorite in the series so far, perhaps because of the liveliness of the characters.
2007: T is for Trespass,
one of her scariest books yet; becomes riveting.
2009: U is for Undertow,
a very satisfying book.
2011: V is for Vengeance,
very good.
2013: W is for Wasted,
very good: more cousins appear; drug trial shenanigans.
2013: Kinsey and Me.
2015: The new issue of HPNC's journal
Mariposa 32.
Includes two haiku by moi.
Especially admire:
twelve strokes
in the kanji for 'rhinoceros'
New Year begins
Fay Aoyagi [p.21]
a license to cook
poisonous fugu
winter deepens
Fay Aoyagi [p.22]
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Includes in "A Note on the Selection of Poems" [p. 179]:
| What we were looking for in each individual poem was a depth of intuition and a power of emotion coupled with a grace and a fluency of expression. Simplicity, directness, and clarity were qualities that were thought to be of the utmost importance — and special attention was paid to the music of each poem. Also we appreciated natural speech and the integrity of the line. |
The Appendix is especially helpful, with sample rubrics that could be used for self-, peer- and faculty-evaluation.
An excellent story about trust and deception.
Books read in Sue Grafton's series include:
1982: A is for Alibi .
1985: B is for Burglar.
1986: C is for Corpse.
1987: D is for Deadbeat.
1988: E is for Evidence.
1989: F is for Fugitive:
also a favorite.
1992: I is for Innocent.
1993: J is for Judgment.
1994: K is for Killer.
1995: L is for Lawless.
1996: M is for Malice.
1998: N is for Noose.
1999: O is for Outlaw.
2001: P is for Peril.
2003: Q is for Quarry.
2004: R is for Ricochet.
2005: S is for Silence,
my favorite in the series so far, perhaps because of the liveliness of the characters.
2007: T is for Trespass,
one of her scariest books yet; becomes riveting.
2009: U is for Undertow,
a very satisfying book.
2011: V is for Vengeance,
very good.
2013: W is for Wasted,
very good: more cousins appear; drug trial shenanigans.
2013: Kinsey and Me.
Of special interest is the review (by Maxianne Berger) of The Sarashina Diary: A Woman's Life of Eleventh-Century Japan / Sugawara no Takasue no Musume, translated and with an introduction by Sonja Arntzen and Itou Moriyuki. This 2014 publication is of the Sarashina Nikki, which appeared approximately 1060. One of the quoted translations (although with the translators' excessive punctuation):
In the sky of this aimless journey, a companion who has not failed to keep up with us, the dawn moon we saw in the capital. |
A favorite poem of the issue:
predator
or
prey . . .
whose side are we on
in tonight's documentary
[p. 20] Keitha Keyes
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This issue includes two tanka by me.
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I think it was all the talk about appropriation, exploitation, and
co-optation that made me fear taking too much liberty with other texts. It
is an old-fashioned and suspicious notion that I carry from the sixties.
It is one of the many standards that I perhaps should discard: "Someone is
being ripped off."
... Perhaps I am only being summoned by my own nameless vocation to engender the words I used out of my own body and not to seek them elsewhere. The stunning poems that come from this other technique are already being written. I don't need to try to do them too. I am already after something else I can't explain. Should I get mad at the poets who do use material from other people's texts? No. Why should I? Why should poets attack each other's methods and defend their own with such ferocity? The territory is small, the interest in it even smaller. [p. 126] |
Many excellent poems and some clangers, but the sequencing is mystifying. The poems are grouped into small sections, each introduced by quotations that do not give you (or at least me) enough of a clue of what is coming. The organization feels rather random but presumably has a secret-decoder-key form.
Specially interesting poems include:
A word about the importance of line breaks in free verse:
Denise Levertov's "Our Bodies" (134) is a little master class in free verse,
and if you don't read it the way its line breaks dictate — don't feel
its form happening viscerally in you — then its effect is not simply diminished but actually
distorted. Take the opening three lines:
Our bodies, still young under the engraved anxiety of our faces . . .. . . simply a statement of fact . . . The awkward pause at the end of the second line intensifies the sensation of anxiety being described . . . what may seem like awkwardness or even randomness in poetry . . . can be as formally severe and singular as any Bach fugue. [p. 7-8] |
In the Editors' Note:
| All of the quotations included in this anthology comes from either the 'Comment' section of Poetry, which comprises the back half of the magazine each month, or from the lively letters that have passed between poets and the editors of Poetry over the years. These quotations are not meant to be representative, nor do the selections indicate our perceptions of the 'best' prose writers throughout the magazine's history. Our foremost criterion for inclusion was that the quotes be at once memorable and completely self-contained, and some of the best writing in the magazine does not always have these isolated, detachable instants. The quotes are also not intended to separate the poems into thematic sections, though they are placed in ways that we hope will both clarify and inspire readers' responses to the nearby poems. [p. 19] |
The book won the 2014 Booker Prize and co-won Australia's top literary prize, the Prime Minister's Literary Award (despite outrage from one of the judges, Les Murray: "A clear majority of us thought the Flanagan book was superficial, showy and pretentious and we disdained it)".
Last September I tried to read it but the opening pages, closing pages, and randomly sampled inner pages were boring. Several people whose opinion I respect urged me to read it: so I finally did (skipping over some of the more brutal parts). Yes, there is some good writing. But the brutality of the story seems at odds with the clever-clogs arty non-linear telling of the story. Pretty much everyone does at least one terrible thing and one noble thing: don't we all?
The text claims to be "told in the ancient poetic form known as the renga (meaning 'linked verse')" but the book makes no reference to most of the features of the historic renga, which in modern times is called renku.
And while they call it a renga, in the introduction, it turns out it's not: they really wrote a narrative tanka series because they admit that it's not because each poet wrote five lines (i.e., a tanka) which he divided into adjacent renga links.
Adding to my disappointment, many of the poems are written in clichéd language.
Franzen wants us to spend more energy on preserving species from extinction in the here-and-now:
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To prevent extinctions in the future, it's not enough to curb our carbon emissions.
We also have to keep a whole lot of wild birds alive right now. [His italics.]
We need to combat the extinctions that are threatened by the present . . .
[p. 58]
We can dam every river and blight every landscape with biofuel agriculture, solar farms, and wind turbines, to buy some extra years of moderated warming. Or we can settle for a shorter life of higher quality, protecting the areas where wild animals and plants are hanging on, at the cost of slightly hastening the human catastrophe. [p. 60] |
And yet, in full disclosure, he also says:
| [T]here was death all around me in the forest, palpably more death than in a suburb or a farm field — jaguars killing deer, deer killing saplings, wasps killing caterpillars, boas killing birds, and birds killing everything imaginable, according to their specialty. But this was because it was a living forest. [p. 65] |
Sometimes it seems that everything alive is a killing machine, doesn't it? I mean including humans. I think that life's algorithm is badly designed but I can't figure out a better one. Can you?
Franzen concludes:
| The animals may not be able to thank us for allowing them to live, and they certainly wouldn't do the same thing for us if our positions were reversed. But it's we, not they, who need life to have meaning. [p. 65] |
Read issue 34 (Spring 2015) of Acorn.
Includes a haiku by moi.
Especially admire:
raindrop
a grassblade
blinks
Shannon Dougherty [p.16]
La Bohème on the radio
I watch the snow fall
in Italian
Jeannie Martin [p. 48]
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It's a selection of tales:
| from the many thousands of stories that appear in setsuwa (anecdotal literature) collections for the historical importance and impact of a specific story on the larger tradition of Japanese literary and folk culture, the ability of that story to represent the character and function of a particular setsuwa collection, and, most of all, the stories' readability in English and sheer entertainment value. |
The Japanese anecdotal (setsuwa) literature has "three key elements":
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Movie buffs might be interested that the collection includes two stories adapted by Kurasawa for his Rashomon movie, which conflates two traditional stories that are adjacent in the "Tales of Times Now Past" ("konjaku monogatari shu") of about 1120:
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Related pages:
Books on Buddhism.
Books on Learning Spanish.
Poetry - Learn How to Write Your Own.
Forests of California and Trees of the World.
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