The Lights Are Dimmed In the City
A few years back I was stopped cold when I learned that Maria Callas had died. I might even have sobbed a bit. Today I had a similar reaction when I read that Lawrence Ferlinghetti had died.
View ArticleTen Years Later
Back in the 1990’s I hosted an online reading group dedicated to providing a more in-depth and literary approach to authors and themes from around the world. Reading suggestions were generated every...
View ArticleFollow the Thread of Glittering Jewels
Centuries later, when the Mycenaean age was almost forgotten and the power of Athens was rising, the bones of Theseus were discovered on the island of Skyros and transported to Athens for reburial. His...
View ArticleFar from the Madding Crowd
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard By Thomas Gray The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And...
View ArticleJack Hirschman
From City Lights Bookstore Jack Hirschman 1933 – 2021 Our friend, poet Jack Hirschman, passed away on August 22nd at age 87. His presence in North Beach will be missed, especially here at City Lights,...
View ArticleRemember Rod McKuen
I was reminded that tomorrow is the day they expect that the Nobel Prize for Literature will be revealed. Sometimes I have a keen interest in these prizes; more often I skip the excitement. I don’t...
View ArticleRemembering Guy Montag
Have you heard about the newest American wedge issue: banned books? We’ve always had books being banned, generally for understandable, even if unreasonable, reasons. Classic works often contain words...
View ArticleProust or Knausgârd
A la recherché du temps perdu is a novel, right? But it is a fictional treatment suggested by Proust’s real life experiences. Yet Knausgârd refers to his six part work, Min Kamp, as an autobiographical...
View ArticleWays of Water
The newest issue of my favorite literary journal is available and you should check it out. CONJUNCTIONS:80Ways of WaterSpring 2023Edited by Bradford Morrow Water abides at the heart of life. Oceans,...
View ArticleAubade
Aubade By Philip Larkin I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.In time the curtain-edges will grow light.Till then I see what’s really always...
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