Tag Archives: language

Calling All Cat Ladies

Posted on August 18, 2024 by JMN

What My Cat Teaches Me Crouch.ThenPounce. InThatOrder. (c) 2024 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

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‘I Said Hello. Then You Said You Said Hello’

Posted on August 13, 2024 by JMN

I’m guessing you think there’s a typo in my heading. I know! The use of repetition in “The Renaissance,” a poem by Trey Moody (Poetry, May 2024), was a hook for me. The thirteen-line poem starts here: I said hello. … Continue reading →

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Break Out the Tiny Fiddle, But Have Some Heart, Too

Posted on August 9, 2024 by JMN

She had the effrontery to burden the critics with her good looks. I speak of Yvonne Furneaux.  In a review of a 1955 production of Jean Giraudoux’s “Ondine,” the august British theater critic Kenneth Tynan wrote Ms. Furneaux off as … Continue reading →

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Survival of the Fiercest

Posted on August 4, 2024 by JMN

Various scriptural matter I read has the theme of the “test” through adversity. Failing the test consigns a person to The Fire — agony until the end of time. Flood, drought, pestilence, persecution, war, Vance, all manner of affliction are … Continue reading →

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Foggy escalator.

Posted on August 4, 2024 by JMN

This is my photo of the day (POTD), and my favorite title ever of a photograph! Foggy escalator.

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‘Plastic Is This Zombie Medium’

Posted on July 30, 2024 by JMN

Verse can have visual ramifications as well as verbal ones. Text commandeers white space on the page in one-off patterns reflecting a close collaboration between author and typographer. The ensemble is larger than the words which are its literal medium. … Continue reading →

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‘Tested in the Wrack Wrack of the Parlance’

Posted on July 20, 2024 by JMN

… I want to say / this is how it started: / there was a mystery / it begged / to be stroked(Alexis De Veaux, “For my love at the time of our ceremony,” Poetry, July-August 2024) “YxzY” by Ronaldo … Continue reading →

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The Mythopoeic Potency of Realization

Posted on July 14, 2024 by JMN

Preface, Disclosure and Update, July 14, 2024I wrote most of the little essay that follows (see below) only two days ago. It’s a bit of nonsense penned tongue-in-cheek with a dollop of irony. Satirical humor is my way of having … Continue reading →

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Raise Your Hand If You’re Up for a ‘Variety of Irreconcilable Points of View’

Posted on July 10, 2024 by JMN

Rooky move: I responded to the first page of Meghan O’Rourke’s essay “On Ambivalence: To Be, but to Be How?” (Poetry, June 2024) before I had finished reading it. I caught the wave generated for me by her allusions to … Continue reading →

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The Ire of Texas Is Upon You, Rude Words

Posted on July 8, 2024 by JMN

“Appeals court tells Texas it cannot ban books for mentioning ‘butt’ and ‘fart’” (Maya Yang, The Guardian, 6-9-24) In a report released last October [2023], the American Library Association found that Texas made the most attempts in the US to … Continue reading →

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