May 2012
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“Since time began
the dead alone know peace.
Life is but melting snow.”
– death poem of Nandai, who died in 1817
from Japanese Death Poems, edited by Yoel Hoffmann
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“Bury me when I die
beneath a wine barrel
in a tavern.
With luck
the cask...”
– death poem of Moriya Sen’an, who died in 1838
from Japanese Death Poems, edited by Yoel Hoffmann
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“I’m writing again and I feel my force glow straight from me at its fullest. I’m...”
– Virginia Woolf, from a diary entry dated 19 June 1924. (via fuckyeahvirginiawoolf)
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“I broke your heart.
Now barefoot I tread
on shards.”
– Vera Pavlova, “I broke your heart” (translated by Steven Seymour)
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“If there is something to desire,
there will be something to regret.
If there...”
– Vera Pavlova, “If There is Something to Desire” (translated by Steven Seymour)
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“I brought my love to bear, and then you died.
It was the gangrene ate you to...”
– Sylvia Plath, from “Electra on Azalea Path”
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“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a...”
– W.H. Auden, “Funeral Blues”
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“With you a part of me hath passed away;
For in the peopled forest of my mind
A...”
– George Santayana, from “To. W.P.”
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“‘Chloe liked Olivia,’ I read. And then it struck me how immense a change was...”
– Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own” (via gerutha)
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“bend closer
I’ll whisper a secret
a large ear
it hears
what I mumble...”
– Nijole Miliauskaite, from “The Weavers” (translated by Jonas Zdanys)
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“at night
I bathe in the quiet
forest lake
in moonlight
spread my linens on...”
– Nijole Miliauskaite, from “in the damp places” (translated by Jonas Zdanys)
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“Letters of the condemned. Last words scratched on a cell’s wall. To write like...”
– Anna Kamienska, A Nest of Quiet: A Notebook (translated by Clare Cavanagh)
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“This morning I suddenly catch myself: I’m not there, I’m so lost in thought, I...”
– Anna Kamienska, A Nest of Quiet: A Notebook (translated by Clare Cavanagh)
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“I have often asked myself why I enjoy writing (manually, that is) to such a...”
– Roland Barthes, from the preface to La civilisation de l’écriture by Roger Druet and Herman Grégoire
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“Touched by a masterpiece, a person begins to hear in himself that same call of...”
– Andrei Tarkovsky (via forgottencityiram)
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“The sky is shot with bright rays and blinds the eyes. You cannot endure so much...”
– Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Lyric Novella (translated by Isabel Cole)
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“To construct a narrative is to construct a moral order. But that order is...”
– Terry Eagleton, Criticism and Ideology: A Study in Marxist Literary Theory
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“Nothing gapes wider than my wound
I cry over this disaster, over everything,...”
– Miguel Hernandez, from “Elegy” (translated by Don Share)
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“Once more, it turned out that
the real world doesn’t exist, to the immense...”
– Adam Zagajewski, “Late Beethoven” (via ahuntersheart)
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“if I could have caught up from the earth,
the whole of the flowers of the...”
– H.D., from “Eurydice”
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“Saffron from the fringe of the earth
wild saffron that has bent over the sharp...”
– H.D., from “Eurydice”
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“Hard dreams. The moment at which you recognize that your own death lies in wait...”
– Ron Silliman, from “You”
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“Reckless and random the cars race and roar and hunt us to death like blood...”
– Virginia Woolf, The Waves
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“He began to resent the time he had spent at work on the Foote farm. Having come...”
– John Williams, Stoner (via nickrecommends)
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“A winter’s postponed nightmare cries out in my bones.
At my ankle a small...”
– Sandor Csoori, from “Postponed Nightmare” (translated by Len Roberts and Laszlo Vertes)
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“Once in summer
when green tendernesses
slept in half shadows
once in autumn...”
– Werner Lutz, from “Kissing Nests” (translated by Mark Vincenz)
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“You smell of absence
Alone you gave birth to yourself”
– Vasko Popa, from “Heaven’s Ring” (translated by Charles Simic)
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“And when a poet dies, deep in the night
a lone black bird wakes up in the...”
– Miroslav Holub, from “Interferon” (translated by Dana Habova and David Young)
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“my body
writes into your flesh
the poem
you make of me”
– Audre Lorde, from “Recreation”
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“I
write because
I would like
to be used for
years after
my death. Not
only...”
– Eileen Myles, from “Peanut Butter”
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“I don’t think it’s terribly controversial to note that women, from a young age,...”
– Jennifer duBois, Writing Across Gender (via florida-uterati)
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tea-and-swashbuckling asked: [Favor filter] My former book arts/calligraphy teacher is trying to start a new book arts education program in Boston, and has subsequently applied for a grant. She needs to attain 250 votes in order to be considered. I recently posted a link about this on my tumblr, and I was wondering if you would take a look and consider reblogging or posting about this? You can also learn more by googling The...
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“Memories rose up inside him, and not only personal memories: history took shape,...”
– Hans Keilson, Comedy in a Minor Key (translated by Damion Searls)
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“She had seen fear: the terrible helpless fear that rises up out of sadness and...”
– Hans Keilson, Comedy in a Minor Key (translated by Damion Searls)
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rivulet asked: Is there a way so people living in different time zones can watch the documentaries? I'd really like to watch Winter Dreams but I don't really see myself staying up till 4am for it.
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“I can’t really remember the days. The light of the sun blurred and...”
– Marguerite Duras, The Lover (translated by Barbara Bray)
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“One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It’s one of...”
– Carlos Fuentes (via booklover)
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“She hated the namelessness of women in stories, as if they lived and died so...”
– Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding (via earlyfrost) 