As I promised in a previous post, here’s my almost certainly true and accurate explanation of why the language you’re reading now is the result of one man’s writing back in the 14th century. Yes, of course, I mean Chaucer; author of The Canterbury Tales. Thanks to him, you’re reading this
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Scripturient: Not the Chaucer You’re Looking For
I received a couple of new Chaucer books recently and, despite my love of reading Chaucer, frankly, I was disappointed by both. My expectations for both greatly exceeded what little joy I received from them. I was deeply disappointed by both. And I’m here to tell you why. Let me
Continue readingScripturient: Musings on Haiku
I can’t recall just when I first encountered haiku, that subtle, concise and often baffling Japanese poetry, but I suspect it was sometime in the late 1960s, not long after I was first introduced to Buddhism. I recall having the four-volume set of seasonal haiku by Blyth back in those
Continue readingScripturient: Back to Horace No. 2
I was browsing online recently because I wanted to order another book of Horace’s Odes or maybe his Epistles in my efforts to understand and appreciate the poet more fully. I was scrolling through the always-poorly organized list of items on Amazon’s search page results (selected, it seems, mostly to
Continue readingScripturient: Back to Horace
During the pandemic lockdowns, I heard a lot of people bemoan their inability to travel; on vacation, to visit relatives, to shop, or just to get out of their homes and see new places. People felt isolated, some went stir-crazy. We are a not merely a culture easily bored with
Continue readingScripturient: The Science Fiction of Robert Frost
Robert Frost was a great American poet, and I’ve enjoyed many of his poems over the decades I’ve been reading poetry. Some are a tad bucolic for my taste, but many also plumb the depths of human emotions so succinctly as to make Frost more universal than simply American. But
Continue readingCathie from Canada: Music and poetry and funny stuff
But first: what a race! 🔥🔥🔥 Gold for 🇨🇦 in the 4×100 at the Worlds!! Big tip of the cap to our dudes @KingsleySC and @De6rasse big backstretch from Jerome Blake, shoutout Brendon Rodney!! 🇨🇦🔥🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/1Gf88AmRMn — Tim Micallef (@tim_micallef) July 24, 2022 Now, some great dances: Fred Astaire said
Continue readingScripturient: Ars Poetica
Horace’s Ars Poetica, or the Art of Poetry, was written as a 476-line poem in a letter to his friend, the Roman senator Lucius Calpurnius Piso (Lucius) and his two sons, around 19 BCE. It was known for a time as the “Epistle to the Pisos” until 95CE when the
Continue readingScripturient: Kerouac’s Haikus
Haiku is like a razor blade: small, light, but yet strong and incredibly sharp. Haiku says “Look over there!” and then smacks you from the other side. Haiku is the neutron star of poetry: stunning density combined with astounding brightness. Haiku swims in a sea of metaphor, darting like quick, bright
Continue readingScripturient: Musings on the First Tercet of Dante’s Inferno
Back in December, before Godaddy broke my blog through technical incompetence, I had written a piece about the first stanza in Inferno, the first book of Dante’s trilogy, The Divine Comedy. Since that post seems irretrievably lost, I decided to write another in the same vein. So please bear with
Continue readingScripturient: Collingwood and Copyright Law
I was disappointed to learn that, after my exposing our mayor for breaking copyright law on his campaign website (by unauthorized publication of copyright material), that the town itself has probably also done so. I wasn’t surprised that our hypocritical mayor ignored our laws despite being a lawyer himself (look
Continue readingScripturient: Midway Through This Life’s Journey V.2
For some inexplicably serendipitous reason, I pulled Mary Jo Bang’s translation of Dante’s Inferno (Graywolf, 2012) from my bookshelves this week and began re-reading it. I didn’t like her version at first read, and am still not convinced her modernization is up to the task of conveying the poem’s beauty
Continue readingAlberta Politics: In Flanders Fields? It’s time to encourage another generation of school kids to read some better poems from the Great War
A civilization that forgets its poetry is barely worthy of the name. Like fiction and unlike non-fiction, poetry is how a culture’s most profound truths are told. Unlike fiction, poetry does this vital work with great economy of words. Dr. John McCrae, surgeon in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the
Continue readingScripturient: When Did I Become My Parents?
When Did I Become My Parents? When did I stop listening to new music, and change the dial to something familiar: oldies, classic rock; comfortable tunes? When did I stop driving a standard, shifting gears with practiced precision, and buy an automatic, with power windows, and heated seats? When did
Continue readingScripturient: Musings on Poets and Poetry
For me, reading the American literary critic, Harold Bloom, is often like wading in molasses. Intellectual molasses, to be sure, but slow going nonetheless. His writing is thick with difficult ideas and difficult words. Bloom’s historical reach, his knowledge and his understanding of the tapestry of literature far outstrip mine,
Continue readingScripturient: I Struggle With Milton
Confession time: I find a lot of epic or narrative poetry a slog. Milton, Homer, Dante… I have read my way into them all, but unlike my other books, I never get very far in any of them at each reading, although I make the effort and do so often.
Continue readingPostArctica: Pandemic Report # 6
It might be a good time for ventriloquists.
Continue readingScripturient: Reading Catullus
With the extra time to read on my hands these days, I’ve been dipping again into the poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Roman poet around the time of Julius Caesar. I’ve written in the past about reading Horace, a somewhat later Roman poet whom I greatly admire. I like to
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Plague Update: Trump Keeps It Clean
We all know what a stable genius the President is, you really have to admire him coming up with quality solutions on the fly during a press conference. Medical doctors are going to try his ideas as soon as they find a volunteer and an unethical doctor to administer them.
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: FOR ALL WHO HELP WITHOUT BEING ASKED
What we need in these strange days of fear and anxiety is poetry. Poems reassure us we are doing the right thing. That the decisions we make are the right ones. That our best is good enough in the face of so much uncertainty. My friend Diane sent me this poem. She
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