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Epictetus on Walking Alone
As bad performers cannot sing alone, but in a chorus, so some persons cannot walk alone. If you are anything, walk alone; talk by yourself; and do not skulk in the chorus. Laugh a little at yourself; look about you; stir yourself, that you may know what you are. The Discourses of Epictetus, p. 206. Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 1944. Roslyn, New York: Walter J.Read More
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César Aira on Not Doing Art Well
[A]rt is not something that should be done well. If doing it well is what counts, it’s craft, production for sale, and therefore subject to the taste of the buyer, who will naturally want something good. But art creates it’s own paradigm. It isn’t “good” according to preexisting standards; rather, it sets the standard for what is to come (the crafts of the future). That’s the difference between creation and production. César Aira, Birthday (2001, 58), tr.Read More
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McWhirter Wins the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize
In the wake of my earlier post regarding my mentor George McWhirter’s arrival on the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize short list, there is this extraordinarily wonderful news from last night’s event in Toronto: George McWhirter wins $78,000 for the international prize for his translation of Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence, written in Spanish by Mexican poet Homero Aridjis (New Directions Publishing).Read More
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My Poetic Mentor Makes the Griffin Prize Shortlist. Huzzah!
Vancouver poet and translator George McWhirter makes shortlist for $130K Griffin Poetry Prize CBC Books · Posted: Apr 17, 2024 8:47 AM MDT | Last Updated: April 18 Canadian translator George McWhirter is on the shortlist for the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize. (Mark Van Mannen) Canadian translator George McWhirter has made the shortlist for the Griffin Poetry Prize. He is recognized for Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence, which was translated from Spanish and written by the great Mexican poet Homero Aridjis. The $130,000 prize is the world’s largest prize for a single book of poetry written in or translated into English. Read the full story here.Read More
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On the Fear of Influence
CULTIVATED GROUND When young, one is fearful of being influenced by other writers. With maturity that fear dissipates and one detects the sound of foreign voices on one’s home ground and is often delighted to be helped with a few thrusts of the spade. It is more important that the earth be properly cultivated than that every potato be planted with a jerk of the arm uniquely one’s own.Read More
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Adventures in Reading 2022
PART ONE: DISTRACTION AND ENCHANTMENT 2022 was unkind to my habit of reading lots of books. Partly my paid work was to blame: growing pains (which I am too old for) of the professional kind. Then there was the several weeks I wasted on Thomas Mann‘s Doctor Faustus, which I had to abandon. What drudgery! What a distraction! I’d read and admired a number of Mann’s short stories, but Doctor Faustus struck me as all posturing, a ponderous performance with no point in sight, almost every moment of it arriving via second- or third-hand reports about Mann’s fictional, Schoenbergian composer, Adrian Leverkühn.Read More
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What Comrade Trump and Comrade Tucker Want for America
https://lithub.com/on-the-ukrainian-poets-who-lived-and-died-under-soviet-suppression/Read More
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Laura Cesarco Eglin Zooms In (Free Reading)
Join Us for a Free Zoom Poetry Reading Featuring Laura Cesarco Eglin Monday, March 15, 2021 6:00 p.m. – 7:15 p.m. Poet, translator, and publisher Laura Cesarco Eglin has authored numerous collections of poetry, as well as translations from the Spanish, Portuguese, Portuñol, and Galician. Her work has appeared in many journals and she is the co-founding editor and publisher of Veliz Books. She teaches at Simpson College. Learn more about Laura Cesarco Eglin and her work: https://www.tupeloquarterly.com/tag/laura-cesarco-eglin/ Laura will read in both English and Spanish, then take your questions on craft, poetry, and translation.Read More
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Cavafy. Connery. Vangelis. Oh my….
I recommend full screen mode for this.Read More
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Excerpts from a Manifesto (1924)
I put this post together last year, while writing my annual Adventures in Reading post. Then I forgot to post it! So, for your reading pleasure, a few excerpts from “Surrealism Manifesto,” by Yvan Goll (October 1, 1924), translated by Nan Watkins and published in full in The Inner Trees: Selected Poems of Yvan Goll, edited by Thomas Rain Crowe. Much wisdom here! Reality is the basis of all great art. Without it there is no life, no substance. Reality is the ground under our feet and sky over our head.Read More