For the mother and father who read to me, for the library card I remember signing the very first time before I could even write my last name, for the people I’ve met who loved books as much I do, for the places I’ve been and continue to go in the pages of a book. [...]
Archive for the ‘Books’ Category
Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100 By Martin Espada
Posted in Absence, Art, Bennington, Books, Building, Community, Gratitude, Grief, Memory, Remembrance, tagged Absence, Anger, Bennington, Books, Building, Community, Gratitude, Grief, How Poetry Heals, Liam Rector, Life, Life and How to Live It, Loss, Martin Espada, Memory, Poetry, Poets, Rebuilding, Remembrance, The Twin Towers, Writers, Writing, Writing Community on September 3, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100
by Martín Espada
for the 43 members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 100, working at the Windows on the World restaurant, who lost their lives in the attack on the World Trade Center
Alabanza. Praise the cook with the shaven head
and a tattoo on his shoulder that said Oye,
a blue-eyed [...]
For the Executive Director of the Fallen
Posted in Absence, Art, Bennington, Books, Community, Faith, Family, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Loss, Poetry, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Writing, tagged Absence, Art, Bennington, Books, Community, Faith, Family, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Life and How to Live It, Loss, Poetry, Poetry Magazine, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Tom Sleigh, Writers, Writing, Writing Community on August 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
For the Executive Director of the Fallen
by Tom Sleigh
In memoriam Liam Rector
The little boy crying out
Weenie Weenie
in self-panicking delight,
waving his little cock
under the banner
of the sun, seemed pure Blake,
all anarchy and energy,
an innocence unfrightened
of itself that shook the lake’s
waters and unsettled
the strained composures
and appointed certainties
of whatever Absolute Speaker
had been ranting in my brain:
Peace Through Strength
Justice [...]
In Memory: Mahmoud Darwish
Posted in Absence, Art, Books, Community, Grief, Journey, Life, Loss, Poetry, Prayer, Transitions, Writing, tagged Absence, Art, Community, Fiction, Gratitude, Grief, Journey, Language, Life, Loss, Mahmoud Darwish, Nonfiction, Poetry, Prayer, Transitions, Writers, Writing, Writing Community on August 10, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Poet Mahmoud Darwish dies at 67
Mahmoud Darwish, the world’s most recognized Palestinian poet, whose prose gave voice to the Palestinian experience of exile, occupation and infighting, died yesterday in Houston, Texas. He was 67. He died following open heart surgery.
Born to a Muslim family in historical Palestine, he emerged as a Palestinian cultural icon who [...]
“Father of that silence”–Larry Levis
Posted in Absence, Art, Bennington, Books, Building, Community, Faith, Family, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Loss, Poetry, Prayer, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Transitions, Truth, Writing, tagged Absence, Amy Tudor, Art, Bennington, Books, Building, Community, Faith, Family, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Larry Levis, Liam Rector, Life, Loss, Poetry, Poets, Prayer, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Transitions, Truth, Writers, Writing, Writing Community on August 9, 2008 | 2 Comments »
From “Linnets” by Larry Levis
This is a good page.
It is blank,
and getting blanker.
My mother and father
are falling asleep over it.
My brother is finishing a cigarette;
he looks at the blank moon.
My sisters walk gravely in circles.
My wife sees through it, through blankness.
My friends stop laughing, they listen
to the wind in a room in Fresno, to the [...]
Nothing Twice by Wislawa Szymborska
Posted in Absence, Anger, Art, Bennington, Books, Community, Faith, Family, Fiction, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Loss, Poetry, Prayer, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Transitions, Truth, Work, Writing, tagged Absence, Anger, Art, Bennington, Books, Community, Faith, Family, Fiction, Friendship, Gratitude, Grief, Hope, Journey, Language, Liam Rector, Life, Loss, Poetry, Prayer, Students, Teachers, The Beautiful Work, Transitions, Truth, Work, Writing on August 5, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Nothing Twice
by Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,
you can’t repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies [...]
