Primal fairytales and narratives of revolutionary intent; Margaret Atwood is a goddess of Liberty who comes bearing ax and torch to free us from our cages. While teaching her books I always referred to her as the greatest writer of the 20th century because her novels recapitulate and transform the whole history of civilization, … Continue reading Margaret Atwood, on her birthday November 18 2022 revision
In works which explore madness, faith, values, identity, history, the necessity of freedom and the limits of action, and all of this in the shadow of an Authority which rules the material world like a warden devil and must be resisted, Fyodor Dostoevsky has given us a key to balancing conservative and revolutionary forces … Continue reading Fyodor Dostoevsky, on his birthday November 11 2025 revision
Surrealist-Absurdist narratives of Kafka-esque nightmares, the theatrical techniques of Brecht, Artaud, Ionesco, and Beckett, and a prose aesthetic developed from Genet, Robbe-Grillet, and Queneau, with a vast intellect and command of history and culture; Peter Weiss has created treasures of world literature and theatre whose power to motivate change and transform meaning will endure … Continue reading Peter Weiss, on his birthday November 8
The works of Albert Camus have become foundational to me personally and to our civilization, studied in every high school in America as core curriculum and by anyone else pursuing an education; these include the great novels The Stranger, The Fall, and The Plague, as well as the philosophical essays in The Myth of … Continue reading Albert Camus, on his birthday November 7 2025 revision
“I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination—What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth—whether it existed before or not—for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty.” John … Continue reading John Keats, on his birthday October 31 2025 revision
“To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.” Sylvia Plath A fierce and brilliant poet, whose slim volume Ariel burns with supernal darkness like the Tiger of William Blake, Sylvia Plath stirs a cauldron of hate and love, fear and … Continue reading Sylvia Plath, on her birthday October 27 2025 revision
A visionary poetry of ethereal, impassioned glorias of nature and the Infinite, vivid and strange reimaginations of fairytales and myths (her poem An Embroidery, about Rose Red, has haunted my dreams for decades), of the values immanent in nature and of the struggle for meaning in a fallen world; Denise Levertov forged a dialectics … Continue reading Denise Levertov, on her birthday October 24 2022 revision
Surrealism, eroticisms and terrors, rapture and despair; Philip Lamantia’s poetry was inspired by the art of Dali and Miro and mentored by his friends Andre Breton and Max Ernst, and in turn directly inspired Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. As the American champion of French Surrealism and Joycean stream of consciousness writing, Philip Lamantia influenced the Beat … Continue reading Philip Lamantia, on his birthday October 23 2025 revision
Poet-philosopher, Neo-Platonic Idealist, religious scholar, and key figure of the Romantic Tradition, Samuel Taylor Coleridge has given the world some of our greatest literature, including the monumental Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, an epic poem influenced by his translation of Goethe’s Faust. I heard a lot about Coleridge, his philosophy of Imagination, and … Continue reading Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on his birthday October 21 2025 revision
Social responsibility and the project of becoming human, the interrogation and reformation of the American national character, goals, and ideals, family and nation, freedom and state terror; Arthur Miller seems newly relevant today. Death of a Salesman presents themes of memory, history, identity, truth and illusion; a play of family relationships and the Great … Continue reading Arthur Miller, on his birthday October 17 2025 revision
Dollhouse Park Conservatory & Imaginarium 