“The artist, and particularly the poet, is always an anarchist in the best sense of the word. He must heed only the call that arises within him from three strong voices: the voice of death, with all its foreboding, the voice of love and the voice of art.” ― Federico García Lorca Poems … Continue reading Federico Garcia Lorca, on his birthday June 5 2022 revision
Inheritor of Walt Whitman’s free verse based on the natural rhythms of breathing and meant to be spoken aloud, and also the prose of Whitman’s disciple Herman Melville and the philosophy of his influences Emerson and Thoreau, inspired by visions of William Blake reading his poetry and shaped by his study of William Carlos … Continue reading Allen Ginsberg, on his birthday June 4 2022 revision
“I envision dreams, memories, and reality like a Möbius strip whose sides are indistinguishable from one another.” Mircea Cartarescu Blinding, a translation into words of the visions of Hieronymus Bosch, part of a magisterial trilogy which reimagines the Biblical story of human origin and destiny, and in the original Romanian written like Vikram … Continue reading Mircea Cartarescu, on his birthday June 1 2022 revision
“Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me.” Walt Whitman Inventor of free verse as an American poetry, liberated from historical forces and the formalism of British meter and structure, … Continue reading Walt Whitman, on his birthday May 31 2025 revision
An immense and enigmatic brilliance and scholarship, expressed in gorgeous prose; Roberto Calasso forges an art of myths, history, philosophy, literature, in fact the whole of Western Civilization. His works are like the colored patterns of light shining through stained glass windows, transforming and illuminating his subjects in beautiful, glorious ways. His work … Continue reading Roberto Calasso, on his birthday May 30 2025 revision
“There are two kinds of madness one should guard against, Ben. One is the belief that we can do everything. The other is the belief that we can do nothing.” Andre Brink, A Dry White Season An African magical realism of huge interlinked narratives, history and myth, the multilevel richness of the archetypal … Continue reading Andre Brink, on his birthday May 29
Before all else, there is the Great Book of gender and identity, The Twyborn Affair. Gender as a shifting puzzle box of images, of performances with intent to escape classifications, the ambiguity and elusiveness of beauty, and the devastating effects of colonialism. The Tree of Man is a conjuration by which Patrick White … Continue reading Patrick White, on his birthday May 28
Metafictional tomfoolery, crazy loops of self- referential silliness, his stories a set of nesting boxes, hilarious, fantastical, crafted with meticulous precision like a ship’s rigging, displaying a broad and immense scholarship, with gorgeous play of language and subversive wit, the works of John Barth include masterpieces of our world heritage of literature. And … Continue reading John Barth, on his birthday May 27 2022 revision
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson A tireless champion of the abolition of slavery, of equal rights for women, and of those of Native Americans, Ralph Waldo Emerson began a long American tradition of looking to … Continue reading Ralph Waldo Emerson, on his birthday May 25 2025 revision
Hawai’I seizes me with an immediacy and vividness in the context of Asian American literature and history, for it embodies both the terror of our racist and imperial-colonial history and our hopes for a better future as a diverse and inclusive United Humankind in which all human beings are truly equal. Between the systemic evils … Continue reading Hawai’i: a reading list
Dollhouse Park Conservatory & Imaginarium 