There is too much for this title, I understand. It presumes giving, having been given, and the nerve to identify the extent & result of that reception. This is folly; this is precisely the false humility I spoke of earlier... Continue reading

from Hamlet: Gertrude: To whom do you speak this? Hamlet: Do you see nothing there? Gertrude: Nothing at all, yet all that is I see. Nothing is a noun, as in, “The world was created out of nothing.” Nothing is... Continue reading

The earth has many keys. Where melody is not Is the unknown peninsula. Beauty is nature's fact. But witness for the land, And witness for the sea, The cricket is her utmost Of elegy to me. -Emily Dickinson Yesterday I... Continue reading

“Poetry is the impossibility of plainness, in plainest form.” —Susan Howe I come back to Howe’s definition often and eagerly. For reassurance, for solidarity, for hope. It seems to me a singular, aphoristic feat: concision without reductivism, prescription without presumption.... Continue reading

In his essay "Language/Mind/Writing," Alan Davies writes, "The mind is the actions in thought of a life." In The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector writes: “When living is realized, the question will be asked: but was that all there... Continue reading

The sun is never more or less bright. It is more or less obstructed. A parable. The urge to feed nostalgia. Is this different from nostalgia itself? Impulse versus aftermath. A temptation, but devoid of ecstasy. The impulse tells us... Continue reading

It takes just one awful second, I often think, and an entire epoch passes. —Sebald In the smallest of intervals, one discovers the indefinite change. I love the dizzying blur of time in Sebald’s quote, but more than that, I... Continue reading