Category Archives: Commentary

Opinion or analysis concerning whatever’s on my mind.

Pausing With Your Eyes

Posted on March 25, 2023 by JMN

I’ve looked into what the exaggerated gaps between words or phrases in lines of verse are all about, curious whether or not they should affect my reading and, if so, how. A writer named Emilia Phillips calls them visual caesuras … Continue reading →

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Deep Fake AI: Could Chat-Git-Yer-Grannie Say This?

Posted on March 24, 2023 by JMN

We don’t need no edgy-cation —hum-thuh-rhumba humpit-humpithum-thuh-rhumba humpit-humpit We don’t need no thawtt cun-troll —hum-thuh-rhumba humpit-humpithum-thuh-rhumba humpit-humpit… Save the humans! (c) 2023 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

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‘You Have to Be Interested in the Playfulness of Poetry’

Posted on March 22, 2023 by JMN

[Billy Collins] sat on a bench and watched some students playing Wiffle ball on a quad. “You have to be interested in the playfulness of poetry to want to keep writing it,” he said. Then, as if to shoo away … Continue reading →

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Ann Lauterbach’s ‘Door’: Trouble Me, Poet

Posted on March 20, 2023 by JMN

A noun or pronoun, with a participle in agreement, may be put in the ablative to define the time or circumstances of an action. This construction is called the Ablative Absolute… The Ablative Absolute is an adverbial modifier of the … Continue reading →

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‘They Can Feel Almost Like Exquisite Texts to Be Read’

Posted on March 18, 2023 by JMN

… Each [painting] presents so much information that you have to move in close for further contemplation and deciphering, trying to figure out how the paintings were made and which of their weird little details are accidental, which deliberate. They … Continue reading →

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Arabic Poetry Note: A. J. Arberry (1905-1969)

Posted on March 17, 2023 by JMN

Given the exiguous outbound appeal I muster, I work hard at not being longwinded. I revel, though, in venting puffs of comment on my adventure with Arabic and its poetry. A.J. Arberry’s essential anthology of 31 poets spans a period … Continue reading →

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Try It My Way

Posted on March 13, 2023 by JMN

Ladies and gentlemen (grant me this antiquated mode of address), we have much in common. We all have nipples. We all have equivalencies of kit in our genital wheelhouses. There’s a comical, often derisory cliché of the (rare) male striving … Continue reading →

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Stored Mental Habitat for When You Need It

Posted on March 12, 2023 by JMN

The lucky, when young, get their noses rubbed in something that as far as they’re concerned they’ll never need to know in order to make a living. Science. Grammar. Mathematics. Latin…. It will hide in the back of their minds … Continue reading →

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Dawn of the ‘Inherently Improbable’

Posted on March 11, 2023 by JMN

For the observer of language, phrases are the news. Today’s newsmakers are “inherently improbable,” “AI persona” and “crypto world.” “Inherently improbable” Florida wants to change the legal definition of actual malice to include any allegation that is “inherently improbable.” The … Continue reading →

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Drawing in the Dark

Posted on March 10, 2023 by JMN

… As a young artist living in Georgia, he spent nights alone in a dark room, teaching himself to draw without the meddling of his eyes. Unlearning is still a kind of learning. (Jackson Arn) (Jackson Arn, “Cy Twombly, the … Continue reading →

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