Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Quote”
I have been angry about the lack of recognition of grief and trauma we are living through during this pandemic. Tens of thousands dead and this separation and loss is not acknowledged. I am taking the time to build a small altar in my home, with a candle. I recognize and honor the dead. They mattered, they are precious, they …
The things we want to be disciplined at are actually fairly simple in a lot of ways, writes Leo Babauta. We want to be consistent with the journaling habit, or meditation, or writing? Just start, as simply as possible. Do that again the next day. If you miss a day, no problem — just start again. Over and over. All …
I’m enjoying rereading David Edgar’s “How Plays Work,” which is packed with delicious information and knowledge. He writes in the chapter on Genre, of the importance of what people (characters and audience members) know when, which he calls the “choreography of knowledge.” His example is one of my favorites: “It’s worth noting how brilliantly Sophocles choreographs the information available to …
The poem, “Lines Written Near San Francisco,” by Louis Simpson, is a work of stunning anxiety. Perfect for pandemic times, I’m afraid. My favorite passage: Whitman was wrong about the People, But right about himself. The land is within. At the end of the open road we come to ourselves. Read the whole thing here.
This poem by Maggie Smith resonated strongly with me. “This place could be beautiful, right?” Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative …
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” –Howard Thurman (photo by Mi Pham)
The refusal to acknowledge names – particularly women’s names – runs deep. And hurts, deeply. This poem was written by Lucille Clifton upon her own visit to a plantation. She noticed a cemetery for enslaved people. The dead were unnamed. Inside the plantation house, she was shown documents that enumerated enslaved people, but just men. The women were unnamed. at …
Your great mistake is to act the dramaas if you were alone. As if lifewere a progressive and cunning crimewith no witness to the tiny hiddentransgressions. To feel abandoned is to denythe intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,even you, at times, have felt the grand array;the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowdingout your solo voice. You must notethe way the soap …
I have done a lot of research on domestic (intimate partner) violence. One of the cautions that comes up again and again in these cases is that strangling (use of a chokehold) leaves no marks, yet can do unimaginable damage as it cuts off oxygen to the brain. Very often, a strangulation attempt is that last violent action before murder. …
Los Angeles announced a while back that a Metro bus card will feature the poem “Gift,” by Czeslaw Milosz. The Metro people said, “Poetry can soothe the soul of many a traveler. The poetry cards on Metro Buses – you’ll find them scattered about in that indented ledge above the windows – have become a welcome respite from a busy …