Tag Archives: language

Three from ‘Twenty Years of Letras Latinas’

Posted on December 20, 2024 by JMN

The planet is bursting with verse. A reader of poetry has to be arbitrary to stay afloat. In this post I’ve done something impudent, which is to apply strikeout formatting to text which I think would have been better omitted. … Continue reading →

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Song-Sketch: Larrupin’ Twang in a Man Hat

Posted on December 15, 2024 by JMN

Attention, Nashville balladeers: Key of… why not?… C. I commend this hatchling of a hit (be sure to credit me) to the key of C.  The key of C is the key musicologists explain least incompetently but most deludedly. After … Continue reading →

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Sketch-Read: Patrick Dundon

Posted on December 14, 2024 by JMN

See ifYou canFind thePoem’sTriggerPull it (JMN) Patrick Dundon’s “Gratitude” says this: […] Sure my mother did not hold me enough,too tempted by the specter of satiety only alcohol can bring. It’s a piece of important nonsense; a specter is terrifying, … Continue reading →

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Start at the Center

Posted on December 12, 2024 by JMN

Start at the center of the faceAnd work outwardsThe center’s where the features areWhat surrounds is just outline Start at the center of the centerAnd work out whatIs where the center startsWhat surrounds is more of that Stare at the … Continue reading →

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Poetry Isn’t nor Is. It Happens or Doesn’t.

Posted on December 10, 2024 by JMN

— For all the maimed and dead. Happens on a FujiHappens on a GalaHappens on a HoneycrispHappens on a Granny SmithHalving the appleQuartering the appleEighth-ing the apple(Can you say that?)Knife slides across skin’Til skin gives inApple tears at the blade … Continue reading →

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‘A Wall to Lean on & Get Your Fiend On’

Posted on November 30, 2024 by JMN

I’ve been reading old nursery rhymes I was exposed to in tinyhood by a teenaged aunt and twenty-year-old mother. They must have enthralled me as I lay me down to sleep in the pre-reason season; they still do. Why? Obscenely … Continue reading →

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‘I Aimed for English Renderings That Could Stand on Their Own’

Posted on November 27, 2024 by JMN

It’s a handsome volume* with gloriously voweled Arabic texts opposite English versions by James E. Montgomery, Sir Thomas Adams’s Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity Hall. The poems are by, and attributed to, Abū … Continue reading →

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Homelessness in the Homeland: The Nursery View

Posted on November 21, 2024 by JMN

There was an old womanLived under a hill;And if she’s not gone,She lives there still. (From In the Nursery of My Book House, ed. by Olive Beaupré Miller, 1937) (c) 2024 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

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The Philosopher Writes His Mind, Then Says, ‘Read It.’

Posted on November 18, 2024 by JMN

Persons who explain philosophy say “as it were” and “if you will” a lot. I’m none the wiser how it were, and no, I won’t.  Persons who explain poetry don’t. God writes the universe, then says, “Read it. As it … Continue reading →

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Thinking About Translation While Reading the Quran

Posted on November 13, 2024 by JMN

Nabokov and Borges differed over how translation should be done, the former favoring literalness (“The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase”), the latter transformation (“Translation is… a more advanced stage of writing”). I … Continue reading →

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