"Those unharnessed runnersfrom glen to glen!Nobody tamesthat royal blood, each one aloofon its rightful summit,antlered, watchful.Imagine them, the stag of high Slieve Felim,the stag of the steep Fews,the […]
A Moment With Sweeney Astray and The Stags Read More »
Moon, come down andcome alone. I have to tell you allabout Akechi’s wife. — Bashō My husband and I will celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary this coming June. I think of all that passion at the beginning, rocking back and forth between joy and fear that it might suddenly prove
Basho’s Reflection On Marriage: Akechi’s Wife Read More »
I am continuing with my notes on reading Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy, with some sidesteps to look at authors, whose work Ong references: Milman Parry and Albert Lord whose Singer of Tales is a fascinating study not only of the structure of Homer's Illiad and The Odyssey but also the important use of mnemonic devices in works
Orality and The Singer of Tales. Read More »
I am in a frenzy, following up from a the previous post on the art of Katherine Ace. We were writing about the surface of art in painting and oral narrative performance of well known fairy tales contrasted with the subtext of evocative imagery — the tension between the encounters of the
The Skin and Blood of Art: Atwood and Lorca Read More »
In addition to writing sublime poetry, Emily Dickinson was also an excellent cook and baker. She often baked sweets and cakes for her neighbors and the neighborhood children. But poetry was never far from her mind and she combined her cooking arts with her literary skills. On the back of her recipe for this coconut
Emily Dickinson: Poetry on the Back of a Coconut Cake Read More »
I had one of those remarkable encounters while reading Kate Atkinson's Case Histories, who was describing in almost identical words an idea I had explored years ago in a poem. It is an ambiguous moment in motherhood, knitting power and love in a fierce and consuming way. It's awful really, selfish as it expresses a desire
The Hungry Mother: Kate Atkinson and Baba Yaga Read More »
"This is the irrational seasonWhen love blooms bright and wild.Had Mary been filled with reasonThere’d have been no room for the child." —Madeline L'Engle Art: Mariotto Albertinelli, 1503: "Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth"
Madeleine L’Engle: After Annunciation Read More »
Let me confess: I'm utterly fascinated by the enigmatic Renaissance rebel poet Pietro Aretino. His writings, which often led to him evading furious cardinals and creditors, and his correspondences with influential men who could have potentially blackmailed them earned him the moniker 'Scourge of Princes.' Aretino's life was a captivating juxtaposition of
Pietro Aretino and The Sixteen Pleasures Read More »
This is an astonishing project by poet Jen Bervin, who travels to different countries to learn about the traditional methods of silk cultivation, from the trees to the spinning worms in their silky-sticky cocoons — and then home again to see the remarkable cutting-edge technologies made with silk. Discovered to be bio-compatible with the human
Inscribing the Body with Bio Compatible Silk Read More »
I am so excited to share two new poems from author and poet Marly Youmans (whose previous work I have reviewed here and here). Recently, I realized that the Journal of Mythic Arts Poetry archives was incomplete without something from Marly, whose work in mythic and fairy tale poetry is really stunning. I asked, and
Two New Gorgeous Poems from Marly Youmans Read More »
