Category Archives: American Literature

PROMPT: Reread

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Daily writing prompt
What book could you read over and over again?
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If plays count as books, then most of Shakespeare’s plays. I’ve already reread a number of them (e.g. Hamlet, Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.)

I’ve read Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, a couple times in full (and segments of it many times over) and expect to get to it again. I’ve read Voltaire’s Candide a couple times.

I could definitely see rereading Journey to the West, Water Margin, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but at this point I’m hoping my Mandarin will get good enough to read them in Simplified Chinese.

I’ve read a number of nonfiction texts multiple times — e.g. Sunzi’s Art of War, Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings, Laozi’s Dao De Jing, and Emerson’s Selected Essays.

I’m generally not a fan of rereading books because there is so much awesome stuff out there to be read a first time. For all the reading I’ve done, there is still a massive number of classics that I have yet to touch. Usually there has to be a good reason for a reread, e.g. a new translation that promises to be improved / simplified, the book is just so potent as to still have lessons packed in after the first read, it’s a challenging read and the first go leaves a lot on the table, or — like The Little Prince — its enjoyment-to-time investment ratio is high.

“Tavern” by Edna St. Vincent Millay [w/ Audio]

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I'll keep a little tavern
   Below the high hill's crest,
 Wherein all grey-eyed people
   May sit them down and rest.

There shall be plates a-plenty,
    And mugs to melt the chill
 Of all the grey-eyed people
    Who happen up the hill.

There sound will sleep the traveller,
    And dream his journey's end,
 But I will rouse at midnight
    The falling fire to tend.

Aye, 'tis a curious fancy --
    But all the good I know
 Was taught me out of two grey eyes
    A long time ago.

“I like to see it lap the Miles –” (383) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]

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I like to see it lap the Miles --
   And lick the Valleys up --
 And stop to feed itself at Tanks --
   And then - prodigious step

Around a Pile of Mountains --
   And supercilious peer
 In Shanties -- by the sides of Roads --
   And then a Quarry pare

To fit its sides
      And crawl between
   Complaining all the while
 In horrid -- hooting stanza --
   Then chase itself down Hill --

And neigh like Boanerges --
   Then - prompter than a Star
 Stop - docile and omnipotent
   At it's own stable door --

“Once there came a man” by Stephen Crane [w/ Audio]

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Once there came a man
   Who said:
 "Range me all men of the world in rows."
 And instantly
 There was a terrific clamor among the 
   people
 Against being ranged in rows.
 There was a loud quarrel, world-wide.
 It endured for ages;
 And blood was shed
 By those who would not stand in rows,
 And by those who pined to stand in rows.
 Eventually, the man went to death, weeping.
 And those who stayed in the bloody scuffle
 Knew not the great simplicity.

“Balls” by Amy Lowell [w/ Audio]

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Throw the blue ball above the little twigs of the tree-tops,
 And cast the yellow ball straight at the buzzing stars.

All our life is a flinging of colored balls
                    to impossible distances.
And in the end what have we?
                    A tired arm -- a tip-tilted nose.

Ah! Well! Give me the purple one.
 Wouldn't it be a fine thing if I could make it stick
   On top of the Methodist steeple?

“Fame is a fickle food” (1702) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]

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Fame is a fickle food
 Upon a shifting plate
 Whose table once a 
 Guest but not
 The second time is set
 Whose crumbs the crows inspect
 And with ironic caw
 Flap past it to the
 Farmer's corn
 Men eat of it and die

“Illusion” by Amy Lowell [w/ Audio]

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   Walking beside the tree-peonies,
 I saw a beetle
 Whose wings were of black lacquer spotted with milk.
 I would have caught it,
 But it ran from me swiftly
 And hid under the stone lotus
 Which supports the Statue of Buddha.

“The Portent” by Herman Melville [w/ Audio]

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Hanging from the beam,
   Slowly swaying (such the law),
 Gaunt the shadow on your green,
    Shenandoah!
 The cut is on the crown
    (Lo, John Brown),
 And the stabs shall heal no more.

Hidden in the cap
   Is the anguish none can draw;
 So your future veils its face,
   Shenandoah!
 But the streaming beard is shown
   (Weird John Brown),
 The meteor of the war.

“Come slowly — Eden!” (205) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]

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Come slowly -- Eden!
 Lips unused to Thee --
 Bashful -- sip thy Jessamines --
 As the fainting Bee --
 
Reaching late his flower,
 Round her chamber hums --
 Counts his nectars --
 Enters -- and is lost in Balms.

BOOK REVIEW: “Becoming Ghost” by Cathy Linh Che

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Becoming Ghost: PoetryBecoming Ghost: Poetry by Cathy Linh Che
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Simon & Schuster

This collection is built around the surreal emotionality of the author’s parents having both lived through the war in Vietnam and also having served as extras in the film, Apocalypse Now. [For those unfamiliar, Apocalypse Now was a Francis Ford Copp0la film based loosely (and partially) on Joseph Conrad’s novel,Heart of Darkness. The film follows a military officer sent upriver to assassinate a rogue Special Operations colonel during the Vietnam War, and shows the war from various perspectives as the would-be assassin travels through the country to complete his mission.]

At times, the poems read like a poem-shaped biography, but that’s not all there is to the book. There are points that imagery and language are used to shoot beyond a mere telling of events, in order to create emotional resonance with the core strangeness of living through a traumatic event only to portray a background individual (someone like one’s own past self) in a fictional retelling of events based on those through which one lived.

The poetic forms vary somewhat, though all within the modern, free verse style. Most notably, the author uses the golden shovel approach of Terrence Hayes extensively.

This collection grabbed me both with its clever language and its thought-provoking central premise. I’d highly recommend it for readers of poetry.

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