January 2012
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Story of a Hotel Room
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Thinking we were safe — insanity! We went in to make love. All the same Idiots to trust the little hotel bedroom. Then in the gloom… …And who does not know that pair of shutters With the awkward hook on them All screeching whispers? Very well then, in the gloom We set about acquiring one another Urgently! But on a temporary basis Only as guests — just guests of one...
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“Time—a few centuries here or there—means very little in the world of poems. The...”
– Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook
I agree with Mary Oliver, but I still find myself so much more drawn to Modern poets and their poems than any other time period. (Maybe with contemporary poets/poems as a somewhat close draw. Kim Addonizio, I’m yours.)
-R
(via structureandstyle)
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“Waterstone’s are now Waterstones. They’ve decided to drop the apostrophe. I was...”
– Michael Rosen: The Politics (and lies) of the Apostrophe (via irunfrombears)
I’m not as tied to the apostrophe as I am to the Oxford Comma, but damn.
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On the Death of Your Father's Former Mistress
My father’s old mistress died last week or the week before. Nancy Hockensmith. Of all of my father’s girlfriends, Nancy seems the most clear: her dirty dishwater blonde hair, her old-fashioned bun, her pock-marked face. She helped teach me how to read, helped guide my fingers over the smeared newspaper ink. She took me to ride horses near her mother’s dark farmhouse that, in my...
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Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
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I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird.
II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds.
III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one.
V I do not know which to prefer, The beauty...
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“There’s something profoundly human about wanting to be sexually valued, and it...”
– Prostitute/Escort Charlotte Shane, “To all the girls who envy my live” (from Salon.com)
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“Note the jutting hip bones. The high cheekbones. Collarbone swooping to her...”
– Brenda Miller, “Table of Figures,” from Blessing of the Animals
Oh, Brenda Miller, won’t you please be my friend? I know this kind of adolescence.
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New York Times: Why Apple Doesn't Make iPhones in... →
(via fatmanatee)
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“Instead of remembering Hugh as I knew him, I too often think of him in terms of...”
– Tobias Wolff, “Last Shot,” published in In Short
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“Externally, Little Women seeks to instill all of the boring values of boxed-in...”
– Erin Blakemore, “Ambition,” from The Heroine’s Bookshelf
I have a confession: I haven’t been reading much. I’m experiencing a last-semester-of-grad-school slump. And depression. And I didn’t want to pick Little Women back up because I always get so bored of that...
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What We Have Going for Us →
annaetc:
If you want to read something good about being in your 20s, read this.
We are not so mysterious. If you want to get to know someone infinitely better, meet their parents for five minutes. We are attracted to people who were loved in the ways we were loved as children. We are attracted to people who are lacking in ways we understand.
I’m also struck by this: “We are all...
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The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor →
staceyjoy:
This hit a little close to home, guys.
My parents were pretty good at not letting me see their struggle for money, but yeah, I ate a lot of tv dinners growing up. When we switched to real butter in the late 1990s, it was a big deal because I’d never had it before—but I guess we could finally afford it. And yeah, this makes me realize why I’m so bad at blowing my...
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“It’s not just the animal body I want, the mathematics of sex, the...”
– Brenda Miller, “Season of the Body”
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“We all know about the great ice age—which has been the subject of animated...”
– Adam Gopnik, “Romantic Winter,” from Winter: Five Windows on the Season
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The Way to Keep Going in Antarctica
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Be strong Bernadette Nobody will ever know I came here for a reason Perhaps there is a life here Of not being afraid of your own heart beating Do not be afraid of your own heart beating Look at very small things with your eyes & stay warm Nothing outside can cure you but everything’s outside There is great shame for the world in knowing You may have gone this far...
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