Sunday, September 30, 2018
Daily Dose
From Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
HEROES
"Heroes are immortal, which is why reminders of their mortality must be censored, from the mundane need to be clean to the pressing need to die."
From Chapter 6, On Asymmetry
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Daily Dose
From These Truths: A History of the United States, by Jill Lepore
DARK
"'Gentlemen, the world is dark,' Clarence Darrow once told a jury, leaning over the jury box with his broad-shouldered bulk. 'But it is not hopeless.' There remained the question: Where did hope lie?"
From Chapter Ten, Efficiency and the Masses
Friday, September 28, 2018
Daily Dose
From As a Man Grows Old, by Italo Svevo, translated by Beryl De Zoete
INDIGNATION
"That indignation procured him the most delightful dreams. Towards morning the tumult of his senses subsided, leaving only an emotional anxiety about his own fate."
From Chapter 10
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Daily Dose
From Leadership in Turbulent Times, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
FAME
"The fame they craved, the recognition they sought, bears little resemblance to today's cult of celebrity."
From Epilogue, Of Death and Remembrance
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Daily Dose
From The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, translated by Robin Buss
SPLENDID
"It was one of those splendid autumn days that sometimes compensate for the lack of the preceding summer, or its brevity."
From Chapter CIX, The Assizes
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Daily Dose
From Essayism: On form, Feeling, and Nonfiction, by Brian Dillon
APHORISM
"The origins of the aphorism are both elevated and abject, as fits a literary form of sublime ambition that is at present in a kind of disgrace."
From page 86
Monday, September 24, 2018
Daily Dose
From Tonight I'm Someone Else: Essays, by Chelsea Hodson
BLAME
"Who could blame me for seeing only what I wanted to see? Who could accuse me of anything? I loved everything that didn't love me back; it was the easiest thing in the world"
From The New Love
Sunday, September 23, 2018
Clerihew in lieu of Prayer
KHALED HOSSEINI
Khaled Hosseini
Stands with the refugees
And cries aloud to the empty air
(See his Sea Prayer.)
Daily Dose
From Sea Prayer, by Khaled Hosseini
PRAYER
These are only words.
A father's tricks.
It slays your father,
your faith in him.
Because all I can think tonight is
how deep the sea,
and how vast, how indifferent.
How powerless I am to protect you from it.
A father's tricks.
It slays your father,
your faith in him.
Because all I can think tonight is
how deep the sea,
and how vast, how indifferent.
How powerless I am to protect you from it.
All I can do is pray.
Pray God steers the vessel true,
when the shores slip out of eyeshot
and we are a flyspeck
in the heaving waters, pitching and tilting,
easily swallowed.
when the shores slip out of eyeshot
and we are a flyspeck
in the heaving waters, pitching and tilting,
easily swallowed.
Because you,
you are precious cargo, Marwan,
the most precious there ever was.
you are precious cargo, Marwan,
the most precious there ever was.
I pray the sea knows this.
Inshallah.
Inshallah.
How I pray the sea knows this.
Saturday, September 22, 2018
Clerihew of Little Failure
GARY SHTEYNGART
Gary Shteyngart
Has a fine heart
And he's funny,
Believe me, honey.
Daily Dose
From Lake Success, by Gary Shteyngart
SOMEBODY
"Barry wanted to punch somebody, preferably a Nazi, but really anyone would do."
From Chapter 11
Friday, September 21, 2018
Clerihew for a Lost Lady Novelist
ELLEN GLASGOW
Dimmed is the past glow
Of Ellen Glasgow,
Long years under the Barren Ground
And lost to memory, time, renown.
Daily Dose
From The Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass, translated by Ralph Manheim
SLASHED
"Slashed and baggy and powdered, I stood up, ringing my bells."
From Book Three, Madonna 49
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Clerihew for Idiots
ELIF BATUMAN
Elif Batuman
Found that she could yawn
In English and Turkish
When men were jerk-ish.
Daily Dose
From The Idiot, by Elif Batuman
MIS
"The day after my nineteenth birthday, my mother drove me to the Pakistan Airlines annex at JFK: a narrow temporary building with dusty windows, shared by Air Poland. The air Poland logo was a skinny, malnourished-looking birdlike creature. I kept misreading things. ONLY ENTRUST YOUR LUGGAGE TO UNINFORMED PORTERS."
From Part Two, June
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Daily Dose
From A Gay and Melancholy Sound, by Merle Miller
BEEF
"His wife said, 'I forgive you. I forgave you the first time I met you because at the same time that I wanted to kill you, I wanted to kiss you. I was already in love with you, you bastard. Now come have some cold roast beef...'"
From Part Two, Notes Dictated on the Fifth Day, Chapter One
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Clerihew for the Irascible
S. J. PERELMAN
S. J. Perelman
Was sometimes seen to hurl pen,
Paper, typewriter, and ink
Into the nearest drink.
Daily Dose
From Evolution, by Eileen Myles
WESTERN POEM
purple clouds
my doubts
my doubts
iridescent
cream, my
loss
cream, my
loss
purple mountains
my friends
my friends
buzzards circling
overhead
my hopes
overhead
my hopes
birds singing
jagged singing
my indecision
jagged singing
my indecision
wrecked skinny
tree
my past
tree
my past
photographs
I send home
my indiscretion
I send home
my indiscretion
amber
street
light
my reading
street
light
my reading
my appetite
my appetite
my appetite
red striped sky
my confusion
my confusion
bright yellow
grey sky
my ardor
grey sky
my ardor
car lights
my commo
tion
my commo
tion
telephone
pole
my wishes
pole
my wishes
stop sign
my fear
my fear
family dollar
family dollar
family dollar
court house
my opinion
my opinion
black cloud
white sky
hesitation
white sky
hesitation
black cloud
white sky
bliss
white sky
bliss
blinking signals
my intentions
my intentions
black mountains
too many
suggestions
too many
suggestions
skipping white
lines
my attention
lines
my attention
a young cowboy
first saw
the lights
first saw
the lights
a young cowboy
first saw the
lights
first saw the
lights
the horns
on your van
my defensive
ness
on your van
my defensive
ness
that ole train
my dreams
my dreams
that ole train
-- Eileen Myles
Monday, September 17, 2018
Daily Dose
From Goodbye to All That, by Robert Graves
PATER
" That my father is a poet, saved me from any false reverence for poets."
From Chapter One
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Clerihew for the Dean's December
SAUL BELLOW
Saul Bellow
Did not mellow.
Time could not dim
The dislikes of him.
Daily Dose
SERIOUS
"Sex is child's play; but gender is serious business."
From Chapter 8, There Is No Justice in History, Sex and Gender
Saturday, September 15, 2018
Daily Dose
From If I Were a Suicide Bomber, by Per Aage Brandt, translated by Thom Satterlee
WHAT
"What do I say, what do I do, what
do I mean, I seldom mean anthing
in the world, and when someone
sings salva me, I wonder to myself,
why are you asking the mighty forces
to fish just you out of this soup"
From Poesi, 2010 / Poetry, 2010
Friday, September 14, 2018
Clerihew for the Sharp Point of the Prick
HAROLD BLOOM
The pervasive gloom
Of Harold Bloom
Presumably is mitigated
By the bores he's ventilated.
Daily Dose
From The Sarah Book, by Scott McClanahan
IF I
"If I knew things would have turned out like this I would have been different. If I knew things would have turned out like this, I would have been nicer."
From page 185
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Clerihew for a Japanese Christan
SHUSAKU ENDO
If Heaven exists,
Somewhere on the lists
Shusaku Endo
Should ascend-o.
Daily Dose
From The Sarah Book, by Scott McClanahan
SHOUT
“I shouted at her and then she shouted at me. And then I shouted at her and she shouted at me and then we shouted together. And then we shouted in other rooms.”
From page 34
