Just finished reading "The Dead and the Living" poems by Sharon Olds.
Also, that she wrote in the poetic voice that I always wanted to achieve, but now realize that I can never attain, because she has already done it ... more perfectly and more passionately and more - poetically - than I ever could. Now, I suppose I just need to go searching for my own new and different voice.
Thanks, Sharon Olds, thanks a LOT!
[found in an old notebook - hand written]
Julio Cortázar - We Love Glenda So Much and Other Tales
Alfred Knopf 1983
Poets should always write prose. They always bring something lyrical to the prose art form - and Cortázar is fantastic at this - especially in these stories. I put them almost on the same lever as Robert Coover. Best Story "Orientation of Cats" - fantastic! I wish I could describe it.
dated 2001-1210
The Best of Bits and Pieces (c) 1994
He remembered during the first decade of the 21st Century, working at the City of Tulsa, receiving in the mail each month a pocket sized magazine of the name “Bits and Pieces” filled with interesting vignetes, quotes, stories, usually business-related or meant for motivation.
The book, the “Best of” – printed in 1994, reading it now in 2020, can tell that it still had sway many stories which, by contemporary standards, would be considered extremely misogynistic. For example, a section called “Women” but not a section called “Men” – or stories desinged to illustrate the success of a man dependant upon the woman supporting him in his endeavours, yet no stories about the contrary.
Still though, there are many good quotes which do stand the test of time and which can be very useful
He looked at his nightstand. The books piled on top. The books stacked underneath. The books hidden in the drawer.
Hand on the wood, fingers moving toward the spine of the book atop two others.
"How many of these have I read?" he thought. "How many do I need to read before I get to 1,000?"
Most of them, he could see, were books about the Bible. Books on the Bible. Books based on Biblical principals or the study of Jesus Christ, who is God.
But how much of a percentage could he have read to consider them counting toward the 1,000?
50%?
75%?
And would that include paragraphs he skimmed over?
And since they were about his Lord and Savior, would any shortcuts be, in effect, cheating God?
These are questions to which he had no answer.
He supposed he would just have to take it on faith.
He smiled than, both wanly, and with resolution.
Crazy Love, by Francis Chan
