Bunny Harvey

Excellent new paintings at Newport Art Museum.

Daniel Clayman

I am in contact with my work everyday. Most days I come to the studio as the "working artist." Other days I come as an observer, to see what the "artist" is doing. The work is a continual, always evolving exploration of simple forms.

-Daniel Clayman

visit here

and here.

Samuel Beckett

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

-Samuel Beckett

Ira Glass

This American Life

Back to School

Read.

Cursing Cockatoo

Read.

David M. Kennedy

Read.

Overheard

Read.

Rewired Brain

Read.

Hippocampal Neurogenesis

Read.

May Sarton Festival

It is only when we can believe that we are creating the soul that life has any meaning, but when we can believe it - and I do and always have - then there is nothing we do that is without meaning and nothing that we suffer that does not hold the seed of creation in it.
-May Sarton, Journal of A Solitude page 67

One must believe that private dilemmas are, if deeply examined, universal, and so, if expressed, have a human value beyond the private, and one must also believe in the vehicle for expressing them, in the talent.
-May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

Far greater risks than the risks attendant upon an uprooted, floating-free life that may at first glance appear "adventurous" and/or "dangerous"? The leap into commitment, in love, or in work, or in religion, demands far greater courage.
-May Sarton, The House by The Sea

Adventures may be for the adventurous, but home is where the real things are sown and reaped, where in the end the real things happen.
-May Sarton, At Seventy: A Journal

Begin here. It is raining. I look out on the maple, where few leaves have turned yellow, and listen to Punch, the parrot, talking to himself, and to the rain ticking gently against the windows. I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my "real" life again at last. That's what is strange - that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life, unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid. Yet I taste it fully only when I am alone here and "the house and I resume old conversations."

The ambiance here is order and beauty. This is what frightens me when I am first alone again. I feel inadequate. I have made an open place, a place for meditation. What if I cannot find myself inside it?

Now I hope to break through into the rough, rocky depths, to the matrix itself. There is violence there and anger never resolved.

My need to be alone is balanced against my fear of what will happen when suddenly I enter the huge, empty, silence if I cannot find support there. I go up to heaven and down to Hell in an hour, and keep alive only by imposing on myself inexorable routines.

-May Sarton Journal of a Solitude

I Dreamed

I dreamed of conjoined twins - a girl and a boy. The girl was two feet taller than her brother. They had two separate bodies but they shared a neck. The girl had to walk on her knees to accommodate her brother.

Hounds Tooth

When I was in first grade the pay phone at Murray Avenue School was in a closet in the hallway opposite the principals office, with shelves painted blue. It was also the lost and found, stuffed with orphan mittens, wool hats, and scarves. I took off my black and white my hounds-tooth coat and called my mother to come get me. The coat disappeared! To this day I have not been forgiven for forgetting my hounds tooth coat in the booth. It would not fit me now or fit my dog. But the story still looms large flickering across my storyteller face.

Summer In The Country by Charles Simic

One shows me how to lie down in a field of clover.
Another how to slip my hand under her Sunday skirt.
Another how to kiss with a mouth full of blackberries.
Another how to catch fireflies in a jar after dark.

Here is a stable with a single black mare
And the proof of God's existence riding in a red nightgown.
Devil's child--or whatever she was?
Having the nerve to ask me to go get her a whip.

-Charles Simic

Charles Simic

The one-eyed woman wants to sell me a chicken, and I don't even have any clothes on.
-Charles Simic, “I am the last . . .” from The World Doesn't End: Prose Poems

Charles Simic

European cities are like operatic stage sets. New York looked like painted sets in a sideshow at a carnival where the bearded lady, sword- swallowers, snake charmers, and magicians make their appearances.
-Charles Simic

There’s no preparation for poetry. Four years of grave digging with a nice volume of poetry or a book of philosophy in one’s pocket would serve as well as any university.
-Charles Simic

INTERVIEWER:Insects feature a lot in your work. You seem to be pretty fond of ants, too, particularly in Jackstraws.

SIMIC: I know—when friends read that book they said, “Simic, are you drinking too much? All these bugs!” Actually, I’ve always been curious about these little creatures going their merry way, taking care of business—whatever that business is. Flies are neurotic, moths are crazy, but for serenity you can’t beat a butterfly. Even ants seem pretty cool. When I was little I used to step on them out of sheer nastiness or boredom. Now I can’t hurt a flea that’s biting me.

Read the full Paris Review interview here.

Charles Simic

A few things to keep in mind while sitting down to write a poem:
Don't tell the readers what they already know about life.
Don't assume you're the only one in the world who suffers.
Some of the greatest poems in the language are sonnets and poems not many lines longer than that, so don't overwrite.
The use of images, similes and metaphors make poems concise. Close your eyes, and let your imagination tell you what to do.
Say the words you are writing aloud and let your ear decide what word comes next.
What you are writing down is a draft that will need additional tinkering, perhaps many months, and even years of tinkering.
Remember, a poem is a time machine you are constructing, a vehicle that will allow someone to travel in their own mind, so don't be surprised if it takes a while to get all its engine parts properly working.
-Charles Simic

Charles Simic

When you start putting words on the page, an associative process takes over. And, all of a sudden, there are surprises. All of a sudden you say to yourself, ‘My God, how did this come into your head? Why is this on the page?’ I just simply go where it takes me.
-Charles Simic

Dream

I dreamed about a black Labrador that had green fur.

Idries Shah

Invisible

A well-known Sufi was asked, 'What is invisibility?'
He said: 'I shall answer that when an opportunity for a demonstration of it occurs.'
Some time later that man and the one who had asked him the question were stopped by a band of soldiers.
The soldiers said: 'We have orders to take all dervishes into custody, for the king of this country says that they will not obey his commands, and say things which are not welcome to the tranquility of thought of the populace.'
The Sufi said: 'And so you should, for you must do your duty.'
'But are you not Sufis?' asked the solders.
'Test us,' said the Sufi.
The officer took out a Sufi book. 'What is this?' he said.
The Sufi looked at the title page. 'Something which I will burn in front of you, since you have not already done so,' he said.
He set light to the book, and the soldiers rode away, satisfied.
The Sufi's companion asked: 'What was the purpose of that action?'
'To make us invisible,' said the Sufi, 'for to the man of the world, 'visibility' means that you are looking like something or someone he expects you to resemble. If you look different your true nature becomes invisible to him.'

-Idries Shah, The Dermis Probe

Kiran Desai

Writing, for me, means humility. It's a process that involves fear and doubt, especially if you're writing honestly.
-Kiran Desai