December 2011
1 post
Friday's Child - W.H. Auden
Friday’s Child
(In memory of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
martyred at Flossenbürg, April 9, 1945)
He told us we were free to choose
But, children as we were, we thought---
"Paternal Love will only use
Force in the last resort
On those too bumptious to repent."
Accustomed to religious dread,
It never crossed our minds He meant
Exactly what He said.
Perhaps He frowns, perhaps He grieves,
But...
October 2011
1 post
August 2011
1 post
2 tags
‘A Poem For the End of the Century’ - Czesław...
When everything was fine And the notion of sin had vanished And the earth was ready In universal peace To consume and rejoice Without creeds and utopias,
I, for unknown reasons, Surrounded by the books Of prophets and theologians, Of philosophers, poets, Searched for an answer, Scowling, grimacing, Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.
What oppressed me so much Was a bit shameful. Talking...
July 2011
4 posts
Indifference to Poetry
Poetry did not enjoy, as did the visual arts, a late-19th century democratisation. The overlap between the millions of yearly visitors to the Museum of Modern Art and the handful of poetry readers is tellingly slim. Our culture has taught us how to look at a Picasso—or at least not to panic in front of one. At least when “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” was first exhibited, the reactions were...
June 2011
8 posts
Taubes vs. Nietzsche
There is no eternal return, time does not enable nonchalance; rather, it is distress.
Jacob Taubes (cited)
h/t spurious
Zagajewski on Rilke
“We have a new sorrow today: after the terrible catastrophes of the twentieth century, after the disasters that entered both our memory and imagination, we tread gingerly at the point where poetry meets society; “Don’t walk beyond this line,” as the sign on every jetliner’s wing warns us. And yet the central issue for us is probably the question of whether the mystery at the heart of poetry (and...
“Sometimes we are looked upon as people who speak only of prohibitions. Nothing...”
– Pope Benedict XVI (via catholicanswers)
May 2011
2 posts
Sloterdijk →
In Memoriam: Gillian Rose
1
I have a question to ask for the form's sake:
how that small happy boy in the seaside
photographs became the unstable man,
hobbyist of his own rage, engrafting it
on a stock of compliance, of hurt women.
You do not need to answer the question
or challenge imposture.
Whatever the protocol I should still construe.
2
There is a kind of sanity that hates weddings
but bears an intelligence of...
March 2011
3 posts
“And now the learner, has he no lot or part in this story of suffering, even...”
– Kierkegaard, from the Philosophical Fragments (via ayjay)
William Blake and Illuminated Books
ILLUMINATED BOOKS
Taking his inspiration from the illuminated manuscripts of the middle ages, Blake invented the process of creating Illuminated Books (for video hit Click to Watch!). Between 1788 and early 1795 Blake published a series of fifteen Illuminated Books. He returned to creating Illuminated Books in 1804 when he began work on Milton (finished in 1808 or...
February 2011
5 posts
Sunday of Last Judgment - Archimandrite...
A Sermon Preached at the Church of Holy Trinity in Holyoke By V. Rev. Archimandrite, Prof. Panteleimon Manoussakis
After the parables of the Publican and the Pharisee and of the Prodigal Son that we heard on the last two Sundays, my dear brethren, the Church invites us to reflect today on a third, equally well-known parable, that of the judgment of the nations (Mathew 25: 31-46).
...
St. Gregory the Theologian & Poet
Poem 2.1.90 On his own and his parents’ death (PG 37, 1445-1446)
Πρῶτος Καισάριος, ξυνὸν ἄχος· αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα Γοργόνιον· μετέπειτα πατὴρ φίλος· οὐ μετὰ δηρὸν μήτηρ. Ὦ λυπρὴ παλάμη καὶ γράμματα πικρὰ Γρηγορίου! γράψω καὶ ἐμοῦ μόρον, ὑστατίου περ.
First it was Caesarius, our common sorrow; then Gorgonia; after this, my beloved Dad; and not long afterward, Mom. O mournful hand and bitter...
This Pleasing Anxious Being
I
In no time you are back where safety was, Spying upon the lambent table where Good family faces drink the candlelight As in a manger scene by de La Tour. Father has finished carving at the sideboard And Mother’s hand has touched a little bell, So that, beside her chair, Roberta looms With serving bowls of yams and succotash. When will they speak, or stir? They wait for you To...
January 2011
4 posts
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet « David... →
I highly recommend this book!
December 2010
5 posts
Picture of a Nativity - Geoffrey Hill
Sea-preserved, heaped with sea-spoils,
Ribs, keels, coral sores,
Detached faces, ephemeral oils,
Discharged on the world’s outer shores,
A dumb child-king
Arrives at his right place; rests,
Undisturbed, among slack serpents; beasts
With claws flesh-buttered. In the gathering
Of bestial and common hardship
Artistic men appear to worship
And fall down; to recognize
Familiar tokens;...
Dickinson #539
The Province of the Saved Should be the Art — To save — Through Skill obtained in Themselves — The Science of the Grave No Man can understand But He that hath endured The Dissolution — in Himself — That Man — be qualified To qualify Despair To Those who failing new — Mistake Defeat for Death — Each time — Till acclimated — to –
Who’s Afraid of Geoffrey Hill? editorial by... →
Oxford Today - Geoffrey Hill, Professor of Poetry →
The Worcestershire-born poet becomes Oxford’s 44th Professor of Poetry after a record turnout, writes Seamus Perry.
A stand against the fake and self-serving... →
November 2010
20 posts
Michael Dirda reviews Prejudices by H. L. Mencken,... →
“The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the...”
– Walker Percy
h/t Notes from a Common-place book
TSA scanners and 21st century scopophilia - Time... →
“this post is premised on three insights: 1) as pointed out by Michel de Certeau, we are inheritors of a voyeuristic obsession with (and reliance on) “seeing the whole” which leads to a problematic totalizing of complicated life worlds; 2) this obsession with (and equating of) seeing and what we think of as ‘the real’ leads to a cult of pornographic fidelity...
The château’s being crowded out | The Art... →
Darwin’s Theory of Gradual Evolution Not Supported... →
Pithless Thoughts: Help a Monastery →
click link plz
Not a Joke: McDonald's, KFC, and Pepsi to Draft UK... →
Oh Taste and See: Visit of the Relics of St.... →
good photo and video overview of St. Vladimir’s relics at St. Vladimir’s Seminary
Polish composer Henryk Górecki dies, aged 76 |... →