Join the The Burning Archive Podcast on Apple or Spotify and other platforms for a special feature on the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature, and learn not only about the hushed excitement of the winner (sshh no spoilers), but the history of the prize, favourite winners, best losers, and most contentious scandals. Congratulations to Abdulrazak … Continue reading Podcast #21 – Special on 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature
literature
Flowers of the Mind 1. (září, week 3, 2021)
Michael Oakeshott, Marina Tsvetaeva, Elena Shvarts, Russian Ark, St Petersburg
Watch my poetry readings on YouTube
I have begun a YouTube channel, The Burning Archive, where I will feature short videos of my writing and interests in culture, history and literature. To begin the channel I am releasing a set of five poems that I have read from each of the fascicles of Gathering the Flowers of the Mind: Collected Poems, … Continue reading Watch my poetry readings on YouTube
My collected poems published and on sale now
I am very pleased to announced that I am publishing my collected poems, Gathering Flowers of the Mind: Collected Poems, 1996-2020 in both a print and e-book edition. You can purchase through online retailers such as Amazon and Booktopia. You can buy the print edition from Amazon here and the e-book edition from Amazon here. … Continue reading My collected poems published and on sale now
A task: from Milosz to me
This morning I read this poem. "A task" by Czelaw Milosz, chosen randomly from his collected poems. It reminded me of the post I made on reading this poem initially in 2017. It resonated again today amidst so much degraded public discourse. I will add to this repost the closing paragraph of the other poem … Continue reading A task: from Milosz to me
The poet W as comedian
Wallace Stevens is a poet of comedy, and comedy relieves the distress of tragic history. Comedy reconciles the restless, Romantic imagination with the present and the real. When the world falls apart, one must cultivate one's garden, but also tell some comic stories over dinner. It is comedy, not alone but inseparable, that moves the infinite conversation on.
Donne’s sermons and the blogging tradition
Today, 31 March, is the feast day for John Donne in the Anglican and Lutheran denominations and commemorates the metaphysical poet and reluctant priest's death in 1631. In honour of this intriguing figure, whose poetry and prose I wish to read more of, I am reposting a post from September 2016. It speaks of the … Continue reading Donne’s sermons and the blogging tradition
Three tankas on my garden
Over the last difficult year my garden has been a constant companion and a source of renewal and strength. Here are three tankas composed in thanks for my garden. I Freshly dug earthOpens its arms for rain.Here dreams were planted.Yesterday, my flowers died.Tomorrow, my ferns will grow. II Plants await plantingAtop a stone ledge besidePrepared … Continue reading Three tankas on my garden
A revelation from Rumi
This morning I read some poems from Hafez (c 1315-1390) that celebrated love and wine and striving of a mysticism. Notwithstanding the art, the sentiments left me cold, and so I recovered from an earlier post this different sentiment of Rumi that speaks more to my sense of the spirit of the times: "Sometimes the … Continue reading A revelation from Rumi
Ezra Pound, the unavowable fury of thy true heritage in fragments
The story of Ezra Pound's mind cannot be told in plain and simple affirmations. Three twisted trees grow from this mind in all accounts: poetry, unavowable politics, and madness. They stand tangled and tragic in a strange, haunted copse that very few today will see as an holy trinity. The iconoclasts of today's fanatical cancel … Continue reading Ezra Pound, the unavowable fury of thy true heritage in fragments
The persistence of the Mahabharata
One year ago I was about to fly to Bali, as it turned out in the last window of easy international travel before wide COVID travel restrictions. It was a wonderful, relaxing, luxurious and rejuvenating trip. Part of the regrowth came from the direct experience of the cultural traditions that India disseminated over South East … Continue reading The persistence of the Mahabharata
Sponges, metamorphoses and psyche
In April 2017 I wrote the following post in an experiment, a form of improvised association and regathering of the fragments of my mind. I will write some more of these kinds of posts soon. Please enjoy. Sponges, metamorphoses and psyche (originally posted 23 April 2017) After a morning during which I searched my ravaged … Continue reading Sponges, metamorphoses and psyche
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