A novel that is also a haiku. Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata takes place on the western coast of northern Japan where geography and climate conspire to create a mountainous landscape that gets more snow than any other place on earth. The small townships along the railway tracks that cut through the mountains survive on income from the few tourists who visit the local hot springs … Continue reading Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Back in 2012, Regular Rumination hosted a regular poetry event, Poetry: Read More/Blog More. The premise was simple–write about poetry once a month. I’m a semi-regular reader of poetry–one or two books a year–so I happily joined in, a couple of times. Below is a post I wrote for my old blog, Ready When You Are, C.B. about Robert Frost, who really is much better than you … Continue reading Poetry: Read More/Blog More — Robert Frost
I’ve got a couple of daily reading projects going on lately. I’m working my way through Laozi’s Dao di Jing for the second time. Laozi was a philosopher who lived in China about the time of Confucious. According to legend, Laozi was asked to write his philosophy down by a border gaurd who insisted on it as payment for allowing him to leave China. The … Continue reading Sunday Salon: Elizabeth Bishop vs. Frank O’Hara and Several Other Projects I’m Rambling Through
I found a copy of The Selected Poems of Frank O’Hara at Westider Books in New York last week which I bought on David Bowie’s recommendation. Not personal recommendation but one given in a list of essential reading that I found shortly after he died. I bought Frank O’Hara’s book even though I didn’t like the other book I read from Mr. Bowie’s list. I don’t read … Continue reading Selected Poems of Frank O’Hara; Beginning a New York Find
Finding a book suitable for grades six, seven and eight is not easy. The difference between a seventh grader and an eighth grader is dramatic, but the difference between a sixth and an eighth grader is stunning. This year we did our first school wide read, Chew on This by Charles Wilson and Eric Schlosser, based on Mr. Schlosser’s best-selling book Fast Food Nation. Each subject area read several … Continue reading Looking for the Next School Wide Read
If you’re a reader but not an English major, or just anyone who’d like to fill in the holes in your knowledge of the subject, you could do worse than John Sutherland’s A Little History of Literature. Divided into 40 short chapters, Mr. Sutherland’s book covers all the greatest hits from Beowulf to Borges and most of the main topics covered in graduate schools from What … Continue reading A Little History of Literature by John Sutherland
A young man’s wife dies, killed in an accident, leaving him alone with two very young sons and their grief which takes the form of a giant black crow. Max Porter’s new novel, Grief is the Thing with Feathers is hard to pin down. I liked it. I admired it. I found it has much to say about grief, judging from my own experience with it. … Continue reading Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
Sometimes, it’s just not fair. I picked up a copy of Prize Stories 1995 from The O. Henry Awards somewhere, I don’t recall, probably a library book sale, thinking it would be fun to add a random assortment of good stories to my tournament. O. Henry Award winners, I thought, they’re probably all good.” So far they are. I read two for this round: “The Women … Continue reading Tournament of Short Stories: Randall Jerrell’s Book of Stories vs. The O. Henry Awards 1995.
Wendy Mass wrote one of my favorite YA novels, Every Soul a Star. For some reason, I had it in my head that she also wrote Criss Cross but it turns out that was Lynn Rae Perkins. So, with what I thought were two terrific books under her belt, I was willing to cut some slack with my review of Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall. Now after … Continue reading Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall by Wendy Mass
This is the first time I’ve tried to write a review of a poetry collection. Where do I begin? There is no plot to summarize. There are no characters but the poet’s voice. Howl is a poem most Americans have heard of but few have read. (Okay, this is probably true for most American poems.) It’s easy to see why it upset so many people, … Continue reading Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
May Contain Spoilers 