Le Cahier Pharmacie
Voilá our very own drugstore notebook making its début at the uber fashionable shop Colette. Guess we are on to something: a sign to keep trucking.
The Best Gallery in Paris
After three days of intense art immersion, I took the early afternoon off to browse the book stalls along the Seine. Here, I found what I consider to be the most beautiful works of art in the entire ville. A child-drawn cover on Raymond Quenueau’s “Zazie dans le métro,” one of my favorite books of […]
The Book of/from the Sky
Oh my goodness, the written word. But what if it is made to mean nothing? In China, a person is literate if she can read 4,000 characters. So artist Xu Bing invented 4,000 “fake” characters to render a person illiterate. He spent four years making his installation, pictured above, and now on display at Austin’s […]
Poetry Party
At the top floor of the gorgeous Bacardi Building in Midtown Miami about to indulge in food, drinks and the spoken word. What a stunning end to National Poetry Month. Nicely done O’ Miami Poetry Festival!
Mid-March Motivation
March is one of those months that feels like a thirty-day supply of Wednesdays. All of a sudden it’s March, yes. But then it stays March for such a long time. And, we are only now on day ten. Perhaps March feels slow because it’s still too early to tell if our dreams for the […]
Crisis at Thirty
There is an undocumented age crisis that occurs in the early thirties. Indeed, the onset of this decade might mark the actual “coming of age.” Eighteen is still shrouded by the incredulous, protective shield of childhood, as is any age before twenty nine. But thirty-three is different. It is lucid and stunned and dismayed at […]
A Happy, and Clean, Home
According to this week’s Economist, men who help out around the house have a higher chance of not being dumped by increasingly picky and independent women. Also according to the magazine, a home where a close connection with one’s children and spouse can be nurtured can help keep a man happy, and out of […]
Seen and Felt
Poetry bears witness to events that surround it, sure. But it is not the news. It is not an opinion column either. It dips its slippery toe into telling, showing, and expressing so as to permit each reader to recreate the very event over and over anew and on a personal basis. Such a feat is perhaps […]
Nail Poem
Got some Drugstore Notebook nails last week! The work of a true artist.
Diorama
After a full day of museum visits, I was treated to this image at the National Gallery of Art’s bookshop. The blocks of color on the coffee table book jackets, the man’s recognizable but blended figure, his striped shirt and casual stance, the uneven light — all reminded me of the works I’d spent the […]
History’s Best Blue
This post has nothing to do with books. It is just about the color blue. Over the course of two days in DC, I visited two museums dedicated to Modern Art. One is the Philips Collection, which claims to be the first modern art museum in the country. The other is the National Gallery of […]
We Did Not Stop the War
I think American poetry was right at the center of the American heart. But we did not change that heart. We did not stop the war. The war ended when the military wanted it to and Vietnam and her neighbors were plundered and leveled. We had such a powerful faith in the rightness of our […]
A Drinker of Life
Columbia Magazine, The Guardian and various other media outlets published moving articles to commemorate poet John Berryman’s centennial,. For those who don’t know much about the poet, it is a great opportunity to get to know him. For those who do, it is perhaps a chance to learn something new, something more. “Columbia Magazine’s” piece includes several excerpts from […]
Everything in One Picture
The photo above, by Estonian photographer Alexander Gronsky, broke my heart. Even though it is a small reprint of a reprint in a newspaper, the image transmits the desolation found at the limits of civilization, where it is uncertain if the laws of nature or man apply. According to Gronsky, these landscapes, the margins […]
Making the Bhagavad Gita Work for You
After years of yoga, retreats and sessions with spiritual teachers, I was finally motivated to read the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most relevant Hindu texts ever written. Religious reading is hard. It is slow. It can even, at times, be boring. But the Bhagavad Gita is an action-packed tale that gets to the point […]
Ireland’s Favorite Poem
Irish culture may be linked to St. Patrick’s day, and the heavy beer drinking involved. But, the nation is also known for the many legendary writers that came from its rolling green hills. James Joyce, William Butler Yeats and, most recently, Seamus Heaney all called Ireland their home. This year, RTE, the national broadcaster, hosted a contest aimed […]
Download My First Book (in Spanish) for Free
My first poetry collection (in Spanish) was just published. It is called “Entre domingo y domingo,” which means “From Sunday to Sunday,” and can be downloaded here. Even those with a minor working knowledge of Spanish should be able to understand most of the pieces, as they are sparse and straightforward. In the coming months, […]
Go Medieval on Your Verse
One of my favorite blogs is called “Interesting Literature.” It is just that, a site with interesting, often very random, facts about literature and literary history. A few weeks ago they published a piece called “10 Short Medieval Poems Everyone Should Read.” Fear not. The poems included are only a few lines long and translation is provided, […]
Oh, Tokyo
Light Sunday reading courtesy of the Financial Times and jolly good British cheekiness.
What Doesn’t Change
Written by Arab-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye , the poem below is launched in a childish tone, but closes in a distinctly mature voice. For me, this combination of child/adult voices is what makes the poem interesting, what makes it work. Otherwise, the piece stands the risk of being another doe-eyed “barrio” poem. But it is not. It […]