Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life might well be the only book in history to draw comparisons between creative writers and stunt pilots. At Brain Pickings, Maria Popova calls attention to a description of Dave Rahm, the real-life pilot who inspired Dillard’s analogy.
A Daredevil By Any Other Name
Was Milton a Bard of Smut?
An Oxford lecturer finds a “filthy, innuendo-laden… smutty… coarse, and frankly misogynistic” poem supposedly by John Milton – a far cry from the lofty Christian sentiments of Paradise Lost.
“Your brain on metaphors”
“What’s emerging from these studies isn’t just a theory of language or of metaphor. It’s a nascent theory of consciousness.” Michael Chorost writes about the importance of metaphors in literature and the brain.
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The Millions at the Critical Hit Awards
Hooray! Electric Literature has declared Jesse Jarnow’s Millions review of Fear of Music the winner in the category of Best Deconstruction for their occasional Critical Hit Awards.
Sonya Chung at Sweet: Actors Reading Writers
My inner dramatist will have a debut outing at Sweet: Actors Reading Writers, Thurs. 12/2 at 7:30 pm, Three of Cups (First Ave at 5th Street, NYC). Actor Tonya Edmonds will perform an excerpt from my novel-in-progress, Sebastian & Frederick. Other featured writers: Ed Park, Amanda Filipacchi, Jonathan Dixon, Maya Pindyck.
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Let the Rain Kiss You
“The half-stripped trees / struck by a wind together, / bending all, / snapping before the power of… / thundersnow? / Oh shit, do you see that? / Thundersnow!” It’s safe to say that William Carlos Williams would have been blown away by thundersnow. Here are a few other classic poems helpfully reimagined for the climate change age.
Alfred Kazin’s Brownsville
While reviewing Alfred Kazin‘s Journals, Christopher Byrd pays a visit to Brownsville and Kazin’s boyhood home.