Monthly Archives: October 2025

Rooms That Photograph Like Paintings

Posted on October 31, 2025 by JMN

“I’m going to hesitate and say it’s settled into what it’s meant to be.” (Martyn Thompson) I was taken with the handmade rooms in Martyn Thompson’s Sydney, Australia home. They’re atmospherically profiled in the photographs. Each shot has a painterly … Continue reading →

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Amanuensis

Posted on October 28, 2025 by JMN

…chanting in unison, a mobof flightless birds, one timelesscomplicated psalmafter another…(From “Transfiguration” by Michael Dumanis, Poetry, September 2025) A poem reminded me of you, old friend.Judy, Judy, Judy.You came back from a summer’s Italyspeaking of the Italian boysthronging street corners,half … Continue reading →

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How Translations ‘Fail’

Posted on October 27, 2025 by JMN

(Update, Oct. 26, 2025. Some time after writing what’s below I’ve encountered Mitch Teemley’s citation of Psalm 37:23. What’s a good word for how the Quran and the Bible interact? I’ve no expertise in either, but I see signs of … Continue reading →

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Quickness, Sureness, Deep Intelligence

Posted on October 24, 2025 by JMN

Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have. (Denise Levertov) I had the unique experience of being exposed to a poem orally, recited by the poet no less, and of understanding her … Continue reading →

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He Wants to Get Run Over by a Song

Posted on October 21, 2025 by JMN

“We keep moving. We keep putting one foot in front of the other and wanting to be here. It takes a lot for somebody to decide they don’t want to be here… The world’s kind of painful — but God, … Continue reading →

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What’s Rebarbative and Nugatory and Quacks Like a Duck?

Posted on October 20, 2025 by JMN

Ice BreakerKnock knock.Who’s there?Rebarbative and Nugatory.Rebarbative and Nugatory who?I know you are, but what about me? Quiz: Which is which?(A) Causing annoyance, irritation or aversion; repellent(B) Trifling, inconsequential, having no force, inoperative Follow the Instructions:(A) __________(B) ___________ AssessmentHow’d you do? … Continue reading →

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‘What Is an Image?’

Posted on October 19, 2025 by JMN

The only constants in his oeuvre, which takes in every traditional genre… are change, relentless curiosity and, perhaps most of all, an insistent question: What is an image? (Emily LaBarge) [Gerhard Richter’s] painting “Tisch” (1962), has the daunting catalog position … Continue reading →

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Eric Fischl and Other Eye Catchers

Posted on October 16, 2025 by JMN

[Eric Fischl] “Eric Fischl: Stories Told”Featured here are about 40 large-scale works by the figurative painter Eric Fischl, created from the late 1970s to today. The artist largely had to teach himself traditional painting styles, studying early modern artists like … Continue reading →

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Right On! New Directions in Doggerel

Posted on October 13, 2025 by JMN

With its loping equine cadence, amphibrachic tetrameter holds morbid fascination for the doggerel-besotted. No one knows what it is until they hear it. Then they go, “Oh yeah. There once was a girl from Nantucket.” But they’re wrong, that’s only … Continue reading →

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A Poem Is a Sketch

Posted on October 9, 2025 by JMN

Disconcert. Defamiliarize. Distort. Disrupt. Draw, Stardust! A friend I’ll nickname Stardust, avid prose reader, has remarked that relatively few people have a taste for poetry nowadays. I surmise it’s always been so, even in this or that era when <name-your-Great-Poet> … Continue reading →

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