In her treatise on aesthetics, Feeling and Form, the twentieth-century philosopher Susanne K. Langer wrote that Wordsworth’s ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality’ conveys above all the joyous experience of having such a great idea as that which informs the poem—the ‘excitement of it’ (Langer 1963, p. 219). Wordsworth’s ‘Ode’ …
Anthropogenic environmental change and the uneven global effects of mass mobil-ity,eachwiththeirownuniquehistoriesandlong-termeffectsonlifeontheplanet,are two of the most urgent challenges of the twenty-first century. ContemporaryAmerican poetry can help us understand some of the complex ways in which thesetwo challenges are interrelated.When connecting environmental change and massmobility,bot…
There are two gazes of Orpheus.The first is well-known, almost to the point of being hackneyed. It is the gaze, full of impatience and therefore untimely, of the lover who managed to descend into the underworld, charm Charon, Cerberus and Hades himself with song, and deliver his beloved wife from eternal darkness and silence. The one condition the singer had to fulfill in order for this miracle…
During the Paris pandemic confinement period of 2020, the dread of viral death was in the air. Confined to the indoors, I took the hint and finished in May my second (and, I think, last) book of drôle poetry called Styling Sagaciousness: Oh Great No! Drollness being essential to a good life, I fashioned Styling Sa-gaciousness as a death farce epic poem divided into seve…
‘A useful godsend are you to me now,’ are the trickster god’s first words to the tortoise in Shelley’s translation,2 and the Homeric shell is clearly a useful godsend for Shelley as well: as Gary Farnell has argued, the pun on ?????/Shelley enables the poet to claim the allegorical account of the origins of lyric poetry ‘as emblem of his own general …
William Sharp was born on September 12, 1855, at 4 Garthland Place in Paisley, Scotland. He was the oldest in a family of five daughters and three sons. His father, David Galbreath Sharp, was a partner in a mercantile house, and his mother, Katherine Brooks, was the daughter of the Swedish Vice Consul in Glasgow. Sharp spent the summers of his chi…
Wrapped in modernist architect Marcel Breuer’s 1971 addition to the Cleveland Museum of Art, A Treatise on the Marvelous for Prestigious Museums considers the global ecological catastrophe by way of a speculative address to the art museums of the future, revisiting mid-century modes of site-specificity and speculative collage as utopian practices for the present. Written over the course of a …
But Captain Howard Stansbury, who knew better, watched the distant Wasatch pass as he piloted, serpentine, his ship counter-clockwise around the lake, at ease in his prime, his personal timepiece stashed to a satchel, the company’s chronometers safely placed in their soft-cushioned, velvet-lined case, prepared for the purpose, and always strapped, on the trail, with care in…
Strong Hearts Still Break by c.r. Elliott is a poetic journey of self-love and self-discovery of words joined together to tell a story of strength and growth. With this collection the author wanted to create a safe space for everyone that is or ever has been trapped in a toxic relationship, to rest their weary hearts and focus on themselves. Relationships, love, pain, and fortitude are powerful…
Emily Dickinson, then thirty-one years old, was writing a professional man of letters to inqUIre whether her verses "breathed." Higginson was still living at Worcester, Massachusetts, where he had recently resigned his pastorate of a "free" church, and was begmning to establIsh a reputation as essayist and a lecturer in the cause of reforms. She dared bring herself to his attention because she …
It wasn’t quite prayer but the more I recited its words the more incantatory power they assumed. “What can I say to you, dar-ling,” I repeated to myself, “When you ask me for help?” It was early on an otherwise ordinary weekend morning twelve or fifteen years ago. The Long Island Rail Road car speeding me out east, not fast enough, grooved a quiet rumble into the d…
As we gradually saw, there is more to the dialogue form of our expositions than we initially realized – something new, perhaps, in poetry criticism; we could call it dialogical poetics. We are accustomed to seeing all extended commentary on poetry as the vision of some individual consciousness – the more individual and “original,” the better. There is almost always a significant degree …
Nurturing our mental health and well-being is more important than ever. United Nations personnel are committed to endlessly making a positive impact in our world. While this can be rewarding, it can take a toll on our mental health and well-being. As the Chair of the UN System Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy Implementation Board, I am proud of the work undertaken across the UN S…
She wrote political pamphlets in the 1790s, opposing Britain's declaration of war against France, defending democratic government and popular education, and campaigning for the repeal of the Test Acts that had long excluded Nonconformist Protestants (those who would not subscribe, as a "test" of their loyalty, to the thirty-nine Articles of the Established Church) from the public life of the na…
This collaboratively authored work, much like the object that has inspired it, is nonlinear and modular. It has been compiled together from several smaller component parts. We invite you to read this book accordingly. We have provided a series of experimental readings — just a few of what we be-lieve to be the numerous explorations of the creative possibilitie…
art the forest & bare the trees. Make an efes. The Book of books may be a forest of woods, as the page is a clearing, the monster is a letter (for example, Y, who reads the leaves), a river is a mirror, the underworld is supernal, the portal is the shadow over the shades, efes are all about (as wings, as aisles, as the edge of the woods), ††† are trees,…
Guido Gezelle, born in Bruges in 1830, left a varied œuvre as a man of letters, journalist, translator and populariser. But it is mainly as a poet that he occupies an illustrious position in the history of Dutch literature. He is undoubtedly the most innovative and original Flemish poet between 1680 and 1880. With his exceptional lyrical poetry he was some twenty years ahead of the renewal mov…