Words and the World

[This post also available as a podcast.] I’m always a bit more secure on the territory of words and their transfer across the supposed boundaries among languages. Maybe this is inevitable, given my expertise and how I have spent most of my time in the world. So in reading two books recommended to me as… Continue reading Words and the World

The Grammar of Animacy and the Grammar of Intimacy

I think my first section is finished. It is Me Bastard, You Bastard, an extension of and enrichment (I sincerely hope) upon an essay David Hamilton published many years ago in The Iowa Review. It was after I read the kernel of that essay aloud to a small group of poets and writers I had… Continue reading The Grammar of Animacy and the Grammar of Intimacy

Thinking with the Wind

Bridging cultural and natural approaches to the world can be a challenge. The interrelations are obvious, but connecting them in writing can sometimes feel arbitrary: from an ecological perspective, after all, everything is connected, so why one might start with one connection over another is as likely to be motivated by personal, rhetorical, or storytelling… Continue reading Thinking with the Wind

Trieste as Cultural Nexus (rather than “nowhere”)

When Jan Morris opens her 2001 Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere with the phrase, “I cannot always see Trieste in my mind’s eye,” I feel bad for her. When she adds, rhetorically, it seems, “Who can?” I want to object, “Well, I can!” Probably the difference in our perceptions comes from how each of… Continue reading Trieste as Cultural Nexus (rather than “nowhere”)