Tag Archives: language

Bayou Bull: Breaking Water News

Posted on July 16, 2020 by JMN

Texas City. The American Hydrological Sodality’s southeast chapter is circulating a white paper, “Petulant Sociopathy Limitations for Drainage Management in Elevated Swamp-Tick Infestation Ecologies,” for peer review pending September publication in the journal Waterworks. The paper’s authors, Thom Smythe and … Continue reading →

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How It Gets Ugly

Posted on July 15, 2020 by JMN

Half a thousand academics want Steven Pinker dropped from the list of “distinguished fellows” of the Linguistic Society of America for allegedly minimizing racial and sexist injustices. Because this is a fight involving linguists, it features some expected elements: intense … Continue reading →

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History Not Happened Yet

Posted on July 13, 2020 by JMN

A few years ago, I interrupted a panel discussion at the Guggenheim as it moved toward the dead-horse question of whether painting was still viable. How, I asked, uninvited, from the audience, could people talk of the end of painting … Continue reading →

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A Conservative with Elite Style

Posted on July 12, 2020 by JMN

But there was one small difficulty: This hawk was no Truman or Reagan, but rather a reality-television mountebank whose real attitude toward China policy was, basically, whatever gets me re-elected works. Who has heard recently, or ever, the word “mountebank”? … Continue reading →

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Why Do Poets Ampersand?

Posted on July 12, 2020 by JMN

The poem is “Sacrament I” by Robin Gow (Poetry, March 2020). Excerpt, first stanza: & all the faucets pour oil or milk.We fill father’s bottles, the brown and green;thick glass blood cells, a throat-slit pouring silk.When will the baptisms make … Continue reading →

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Navy Blue: A Nurse’s Medallion

Posted on July 10, 2020 by JMN

(c) 2020 JMN

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What Does a Poem Teach? Fluidity

Posted on July 8, 2020 by JMN

Excerpts are from the poem “A Future History” by Suzi L. Garcia (Poetry, March 2020). A muster of peacocks show off their tails, but instead of feathers, knives. This line introduces me to “muster,” a collective noun applied to peacocks. … Continue reading →

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Translated Poem: ‘In the March’

Posted on July 5, 2020 by JMN

In the MarchRené Char (1907 — 1988)(Translated from the French by JMN) These incessant and phosphorescent streaks of death upon self that we read in the eyes of those who love us, without wanting to conceal them from them. Must … Continue reading →

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What Does a Poem “Say”?

Posted on July 2, 2020 by JMN

The poem is “A Future History” by Suzi L. Garcia (Poetry, March 2020). It’s a short prose poem. For my own purposes I want to paraphrase it to suggest what I think it’s “about.” I’m not at all sure this … Continue reading →

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Texas, Florida, Arizona, England

Posted on June 28, 2020 by JMN

“We’re on a knife edge, it’s very precarious the situation, particularly in England at the moment, and I would anticipate we would see an increase in new cases over the coming weeks.” (Sir Jeremy Farrar of SAGE) The warning comes … Continue reading →

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