By: Ray Bradbury“There is only one type of story in the world. Your story.” — Ray BradburyWhat, you ask, does writing teach us?First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards
By: Jiddu KrishnamurtiJean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, the Forest of Fontainebleau, 1834“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”― J. KrishnamurtiMost of us are so unconcerned with this extraordinary universe about us; we never even see the waving of the leaf in th
By: Erik RittenberryPhoto: Erik RittenberryI know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.—H.P. LovecraftText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedHappiness has never been my aim. I'm not too interested in the anesthe
The modern version of hell is purposelessness.“It is not necessarily too little knowledge that causes ignorance; possessing too much, or wanting to gain too much, can produce the same result.” — John FowlesAchieving a relationship with nature is both a science and an art, beyond mere knowledge or me
By: David Burke"Paris is a difficult place… the beautiful things here and there do not quite compensate for the cruelty of its streets and the monstrosity of its people."— RilkeGet 20% off for 1 yearOn his first stay in Paris during 1902 and 1903, Rainer Maria Rilke lived in a shabby student room at
By: D.H. LawrenceWhile the soul really lives, its deepest dread is perhaps the dread of automatism. For automatism in life is a forestalling of the death process. — D.H. LawrenceGet 20% off for 1 yearThis is the way out of the vicious circle. Not to rush round on the periphery, like a rabbit in a ri
By: Erik Rittenberry“By his refusal to live to the fullest he brings about the death of God and the utter meaninglessness of the world in which he finds himself.”~ Henry MillerGet 20% off for 1 yearLike all great writers, Henry Miller was no stranger to controversy. His early biographical novels wer
By: Jack Hirschman (1933 – 2021)Photo by Sergio SalaText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAll that's Left in the world —whether in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia as well as in China, Japan, the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa— all of them cannot, d
By: Richard TaylorBut, unless you were born a fool, there are gifts that you do have, many or few, and your task, then, is to nourish and perfect those gifts. Your reward will be some measure of achievement and greatness—not, perhaps, in such things as wealth and position, but in something far more
By: A.D. WinansText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedthe old political poets don't read much anymore content to scan the pages of major literary journals, looking for their names in print, their books reviewed the old poets borrow lines from their contemporaries, bu
By: Erik RittenberryPhoto by Erik Rittenberry “To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.”—William FaulknerSometime in my early 20s, I fell in love with that beautiful yet enigmatic sound of the BLUES. As soon as I heard those painful wails from Son House and Howlin
By: Charles BukowskiText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedah, christ, what a CREW: more poetry, always more P O E T R Y . if it doesn't come, coax it out with a laxative. get your name in LIGHTS, get it up there in 8 1/2 x 11 mimeo. keep it coming like a miracle.
By: Jean KleinArt: Daniel ArnoldWhen you look at the world from wholeness the world will change in you. You are the world.—Jean KleinYou must realize that you are now only a heap of conventions, habits, what society has made of you. Read more
By: Julia VinogradPhoto by Richard MisrachText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedI went down to the bookstore this evening and found myself in the poetry section. But for every thin book of poems there was a thick biography of the poet and an even thicker book by som
By: Bob KaufmanRebels, what are rebels, here in the land of rebellion, this land that began with rebellion—are they those whose activities can objectively be absorbed or assimilated into pattering time, remember, it is not important, for in the end, the rebel is TIMELESS, and it is only in the passa
By: Donald A. Crosby“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” ― Albert CamusSubscribe nowCamus gives expression to cosmic nihilism when he speaks of the world as “dense” and “strange,” or when h
By: Mary OliverWhitman’s poems stood before me like a model of delivery when I began to write poems myself: I mean the oceanic power and rumble that travels through a Whitman poem—the incantatory syntax, the boundless affirmation.—Mary OliverAmerica’s most influential poet, the great Walt Whitman, w
By: Erik Rittenberry"I am poor at remembering the past and much better at inhabiting it. Things that were actually exist to me. I am the enemy of history and yet a card-carrying member of the dead."~ Charles BowdenThis is a repost from a “paid” article I posted last year. I removed the paywall becau
By: Erik RittenberryPhoto: Erik RittenberryIf a man’s imagination were not so weak, so easily tired, if his capacity for wonder not so limited, he would abandon forever such fantasies of the supernal. He would learn to perceive in water, leaves and silence more than sufficient of the absolute and ma
A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times. —Randall JarrellGunnerText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedDid they send me away from my cat and my wife To a doctor who poked me and counted m
